Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/217

Rh Attucks in 1770, other men of Boston resolved to hold a religious meeting that night. They were thrust out of the hall they had engaged. The next day was the Christian sabbath; and at night a meeting was held in a "large upper room," a meeting for mutual condolence and prayer. You will not soon forget the hymns, the Scriptures, the speeches, and the prayers of that night. This assembly is one of the results of that little gathering.

Well, all of that you knew before; this you do not know. Thomas Sims, at Savannah, had a fair and handsome woman, by the courtesy of the master called his "wife." Sims loved his wife; and, when he came to Boston, wrote, and told her of his hiding-place, the number in the street, and the name of the landlord. His wife had a paramour; that is a very common thing. The slave is "a chattel personal, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever." By the law of Georgia, no female slave owns her own virtue; single or married, it is all the same. This African Delilah told her paramour of her husband's hiding-place. Blame her not: perhaps she thought "the Union is in peril this hour," and wished to save it. Yet I doubt that she would send back her own mother; the African woman does not come to that; only a Doctor of Divinity and Chaplain of the Navy. I do not suppose she thought she was doing her husband any harm in telling of his escape; nay, it is likely that her joy was so full, she could not hold it in. The Philistine had ploughed with Sims's heifer, and found out his riddle: the paramour told the master Sims's secret: the master sent the paramour of Mr Sims's wife to Boston to bring back the husband! He was very welcome in this city, and got "the best of legal advice" at a celebrated office in Court-street.] Boston said, "God speed the paramour!" the government of Massachusetts, "God speed the crime!" Money came to the pockets of the kidnappers; the paramour went home, his object accomplished, and the master was doubtless grateful to the city of Boston, which honoured thus the piety of its founders!

He was taken back to Georgia in the "Acorn;" some of the better sort of kidnappers went with him to Savannah; there Sims was put in jail, and they received a public dinner. You know the reputation of the men: the work-