Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/158

 ought not to be proud to undertake. Instigated doubtless, by such patriotic notions, these public-spirited persons judged that they would be rendering the state a service, — to say nothing of the money they might put into their own pockets, — by applying to this great political evil, so far at least as Cassy was a party to it, a remedy, which the doctrines of more than one of the Virginian statesmen, and the spirit of more than one of the Virginian statutes, would seem fully to sanction. In plain English, they resolved to seize Cassy, and sell her for a slave!

The business of kidnapping is one of the natural fruits of the American system of slavery; and is as common, and as well organized in several parts of the United States, as the business of horse-stealing is, in many other countries. When they take to stealing slaves, the operations of these adventurers become very hazardous; but while they confine themselves to stealing only free people, they can pursue their vocation with comparatively little danger. They may perhaps inflict some trifling personal wrong; — but ahead ing to the doctrines of some of the most popular among the American politicians, they are doing the public no inconsiderable service; since, in their opinion, nothing seems to be wanting to render the slave-holding states of America a perfect paradise, except the extermination of the emancipated class. It was no doubt, by some such lofty notions of the public good, that Cassy's friends were actuated. At all events, those sophistries which tyranny has invented to justify oppression, are as much an apology for them as for any one else.

As far as Cassy could learn, their scheme was pretty much as follows. They invited Mr Proctor to a drinking frolic, and as soon as the whiskey had reduced him to a state of insensibility, a message was sent to his wife that her husband was taken dangerously ill, and that she must instantly come to his assistance. Notwithstanding a few domestic jars, Mr and Mrs Proctor were a most loving couple; and the good woman, greatly alarmed at this unexpected news, immediately set out to visit her husband. The conspirators had followed their own messenger, and were concealed in a thicket close to the house watching for