ave allowed me to proceed
with such a defence--and that I should be obliged to deliver it
through the press. Had there been an actual jury trial, I should have
had many other things to offer in reference to the Government's
evidence, to the testimony given before the grand-jury, and to the
conduct of some of the grand-jurors themselves. So the latter part of
the defence is only the skeleton of what it otherwise might have
been,--the geological material of the country, the Flora and Fauna
left out.

It would have been better to publish it immediately after the decision
of the case: but my _brief_ was not for the printer, and as many
duties occurred at that time, it was not till now, in a little
vacation from severer toils, that I have found leisure to write out my
defence in full. Fellow-Citizens and Friends, I present it to you in
hopes that it may serve the great cause of Human Freedom in America
and the world; surely, it has seldom been in more danger.

THEODORE PARKER.

BOSTON, _24th August_, 1855.

INTRODUCTION.

On Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia,
presented to Edward Greeley Loring, Esquire, of Boston, Commissioner,
a complaint under the fugitive slave bill--Act of September 18th,
1850--praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns.

The next day, Wednesday, May 24th, Commissioner Loring issued the
warrant: Mr. Burns was seized in the course of the evening of that
day, on the false pretext of burglary, and carried to the Suffolk
County Court House in which he was confined by the Marshal, under the
above-named warrant, and there kept imprisoned under a strong and
armed guard.

On the 25th, at about nine o'clock in the morning, the Commissioner
proceeded to hear and decide the case in the Circuit Court room, in
which were stationed about sixty men serving as the Marshal's guard.
Seth J. Thomas, Esquire, and Edward Griffin Parker, Esquire, members
of the Suffolk Bar, appeared as counsel for Mr. Suttle to help him and
Commissioner Loring make a man a Slave. Mr. Burns was kept in irons
and surrounded by "the guard." The Slave-hunter's documents were
immediately presented, and his witness was sworn and proceeded to
testify.

Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Charles M. Ellis, and Richard H.
Dana, with a few others, came into the Court room. Mr. Parker and some
others, spoke with Mr. Burns, who sat in the dock ironed, between two
of the Marshal's guard. After a