e chiefly employed, were
such as tended to purify and enlighten public opinion.

"He had two principal modes of operating upon the public mind;
by conversation in public and private places, and by the press.
Through the means of the first, he worked upon the feelings and
sentiments of the higher and more influential classes; by means
of the latter, he influenced in a great degree, the mass of the
community. In private conversation, his arguments were so
cogent, his appeals so energetic, and his manner so sincere and
disinterested, that few could avoid conviction. It is true,
indeed, as it regards the press, that he did not publish very
much of his own composing; but he procured the publication of a
vast deal of his own dictating. By his arguments and entreaties,
he aroused the zeal of many individuals, each of whom enlisted
himself as a kind of voluntary amanuensis, who wrote and
published his dictations. Many important essays have in this way
been communicated to the public."

But he undertook also, services requiring a yet sterner resolution, and
more heroic perseverance, services which demanded that he himself should
be in bondage neither to riches, honor, nor reputation, since his
exertions endangered all his personal interests in such a community as
that by which he was surrounded.

"Of those held in servitude, two classes of beings felt in a
peculiar manner the kindness and sympathy of Mr. Tyson--those
entitled to their freedom, and illegally held in slavery--and
those, who, though not illegally kept in bondage, yet were
treated with inhumanity by their masters.

"Where he had reason to believe that a person claimed as a slave
was entitled to his freedom, he would, in the first place, in
order to avoid litigation, lay before the reputed owner, the
grounds of his belief. If these were disregarded, he then
proceeded to employ counsel, by whom a petition for freedom was
filed in the proper court, and the case prosecuted to a final
determination. What excited most astonishment in these trials,
was the extraordinary success which attended him. Very few were
the cases in which he was defeated; and his failure even in
these, was more generally owing to the want of testimony, than
to the want of justice on his side. To enumerate his successes,
would be as impossible, on account of thei