ment to be
afraid of us." Confusion got worse confounded. I began to be ashamed of
my position. Mad as I was, I was not insane enough for the leaders of
the convention, so I started home.

On Good Friday there was an immense meeting on Skircoat Moor, near
Halifax, and I was one of the speakers. It was the largest assembly I
ever saw. The Speakers that preceded me talked about the uselessness of
talk, and called for action. I talked about the usefulness of talk, and
contended that resort to violence would be both folly and wickedness.
While I was speaking, a man in the crowd on my left fired a pistol, as
if to intimidate me, and encourage the party favorable to insurrection.
I at once denounced him as a traitor, who had come to hurry the people
into crime, or a madman, whom no one ought for a moment to think of
imitating. The physical force men were terribly vexed at my remarks, but
the mass of the meeting applauded my counsels, and the immense concourse
dispersed and went home, without either perpetrating a crime, or meeting
with an accident.

My advocacy of peace was duly appreciated by some even of those who
lamented the extravagance of my views on other subjects. Others looked
on me with unmitigated horror. And the feelings of the richer classes
generally against me rose to such a pitch at length, that it was hardly
safe for me to go abroad after dark. My religious and political
opponents joined their forces, and seemed bent on my destruction. They
believed I was undermining the foundations of society, and throwing all
things into confusion. They looked on me as little better than a madman,
scattering abroad firebrands, arrows, and death. And many treated me as
a kind of outlaw, as a man who had no rights that anybody was bound to
respect; and rude boys and reckless men took liberties with my property,
and even threatened me with death. Insurance companies would not insure
my property. Schoolmasters would not admit my sons into their schools,
lest others should take their children away. Mothers would not allow
their daughters to play with my little daughter, lest she should infect
them with her father's heresies.

After the Summer Assizes in 1848, the judge at Liverpool issued Bench
warrants for the arrest of a number of political agitators, and in the
list of the names of those parties, published in the newspapers, mine
was included. As I had always kept within the limits of the law, and as
I had received no visi