s in
their poison, deadly clutch. But that time, wickedness went off
hungry, defeated of its prey; "for the Lord delivered him out of their
hands," and Shadrach escaped from that Babylonish furnace, heated
seven times hotter than its wont: no smell of fire had passed on him.
But the rescue of Shadrach was telegraphed as "treason." The innocent
lightning flashed out the premeditated and legal lie,--"it is levying
war!" What offence it was in that Fourth One who walked with the
Hebrew children, "making their good confession," and sustained the old
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I know not. But the modern countrymen
of the African Shadrach, charged with some great crime, were haled
into this court to be punished for their humanity! I came to look on
these modern Angels of the Deliverance, to hear counsel of Mr. Dana,
then so wise and humane, and to listen to the masterly eloquence which
broke out from the great human heart of my friend, Mr. Hale, and
rolled like the Mississippi, in its width, its depth, its beauty, and
its continuous and unconquerable strength.

4. The fourth time, a poor man had been kidnapped, also at night, and
forced into the same illegal jail. He sat in the dock--an innocent
man, to be made into a beast. The metamorphosis had begun;--he was
already in chains and his human heart seemed dead in him; sixty
ruffians were about him, aiding in this drama, hired out of the
brothels and rum-shops for a few days, the lust of kidnapping serving
to vary the continual glut of those other and less brutal appetites of
unbridled flesh. While that "trial" lasted, whoredom had a Sabbath
day, and brawlers rested from their toil. Opposite sat the Boston
Judge of Probate, and the Boston District Attorney,--the Moses and
Elias of this inverted transfiguration; there sat the marshal, two
"gentlemen" from Virginia, claiming that a Boston man was their beast
of burthen, owing service and labor in Richmond; two "lawyers,"
"members of the Suffolk bar," pistols in their coats, came to support
the allegation and enforce the claim. Honorable men stood up to defend
him. There is one of them,--to defend me [Charles M. Ellis.] You know
very well the rest of that sad story,--the mock trial of Anthony Burns
lasted from May 25th till June 2d. I was here in all the acts of that
Tragedy. My own life was threatened; friend and foe gave me public or
anonymous warning. I sat between men who had newly sworn to kill me,
my garments touchin