nous to
his Honor, informs Mr. Nason of the hiding-place of his female slave,
thus betraying a "mistress" to her master, no longer, alas, her
"keeper." It is no injurious imputation--it is an imaginary honor I
attribute to the learned and honorable Judge. Mr. Nason sends the
proper agent to Boston to save the Union of States by restoring the
union of master and slave. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, fugitive slave
bill commissioner, and brother to the Hon. Judge, issues his warrant
for kidnapping the mother; his coadjutor and friend, Mr. Butman,
attempts to seize her in her son's house. Thomas, unarmed, resists the
intruder, and with a child's pop-gun drives that valiant officer out
of the house, and puts the mother in a place of safety,--beneath the
flag of England, or the Pope, or the Czar. Commissioner Curtis
telegraphs the news to Washington,--announcing a "NEW CASE OF
TREASON--more 'levying war!'" The Secretaries of State and of War
write dreadful letters, breathing fire and slaughter, and President
Pierce, a man of most heroic courage, alike mindful of his former
actual military exploits at Chapultepec, of his delegated triumph at
Greytown, and of the immortal glory of Mr. Fillmore, issues his
Proclamation, calling on all good citizens, and especially on the
politicians of his party, to "Save the Union" from the treason of this
terrible Thomas Nason, who will blow up the Constitution with a
pop-gun!

At the next session of the Honorable Circuit Court of the United
States in and for the first District, his Honor the Hon. Benjamin
Robbins Curtis, Judge, constructs and charges the Grand-Jury in the
manner already set forth. He instructs them that if any man, by force
and arms, namely, with a pop-gun, does resist a body of United States
officers, attempting to kidnap a woman, his own mother, that he
thereby levies war against the United States, and accordingly commits
the crime of "Treason" which consists in levying war against the
United States--the "_amount_ of force is not material." And it is
their duty to indict all persons in that form offending. The Attorney,
the Hon. Benjamin Franklin Hallett, offers to "bet ten dollars that I
will get" Nason "indicted," and urges the matter. But no bill is
found, the Jury is discharged, a new Jury is summoned, and Mr. William
W. Greenough, the Brother-in-law of the Judge is put on it, "drawn as
Juror"--and then a "true bill" is found, Mr. Hallett actually making
an indictment th