ightly in so just a
cause, abused the privileges which their integrity and unusual intelligence
had won for them. The news was passed to an aggregate of 77 persons, all of
whom faithfully appeared and were safely stowed away between decks before
midnight. Samuel sought his sisters Emily and Mary at their places of
employment and acquainted them with his purpose. They at first hesitated on
account of the necessity of leaving without seeing their mother, but were
soon persuaded that it was an opportunity they should not be willing to
neglect.

The _Pearl_ cast free from her moorings shortly after midnight Saturday and
silently, with no sign of life aboard, save running lights fore and aft,
crept out to mid-stream and made a course towards the lower Potomac. The
condition that obtained on Sunday morning after the discovery of the
absence of so many slaves from their usual duties may be accurately
described as approaching a panic. Had the evidences of a dreadful plague
become as suddenly manifest, the community could not have experienced a
greater sense of horror or for the moment been more thoroughly paralyzed. A
hundred or more families were affected through the action of these seventy
and seven slaves and the stern proofs of their flight were many times
multiplied.

The action of the masters in this emergency is eloquent testimony that the
fine orations of two days before concerning the spread of liberty and
universal brotherhood had been nothing more than so many meaningless
conversations. When confronted on Sunday morning with the fact that theirs
and their neighbors' slaves, in so great numbers, had disappeared during
the night, the realization of the difference between popular enthusiasm for
a sentiment and a real sacrifice for a principle was borne in upon them and
they found that while they enjoyed the former they were not at all ready to
espouse the latter.

As a result the day was but little advanced when an excited cavalcade of
the masters, after scouring every portion of the city, broke for the open
country to the North, designing to cover each of the roads leading from the
city. They had not reached the District limits, however, when they whirled
about and galloped furiously in the opposite direction and never checked
rein, until panting and foaming, their horses were brought up at the
wharves. A vessel was chartered and steamed away almost immediately on its
mission to capture the party of runaway slaves.