Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/119

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killed while resisting the liberation of a negro, and the party got but one slave.

Brown ran his party of fugitives and captives over into Kansas, liberated his prisoners there, and deliberately organized a flight—with the negroes—to Canada! It was midwinter, and the negro women and children had to be transported in slowly lumbering Conestoga wagons. By this time rewards were offered for Brown even by the Free State authorities of Kansas, so that he was doubly and trebly an outlaw. This attempt would have proved Brown's insanity if he had not actually accomplished the feat. Inasmuch as he accomplished it, it proved his genius.

The Free State men—the best of them, at any rate—gave him shelter and helped him to conceal his captives, but protested against his act. Even Augustus Wattles, a Quaker and a loyal friend of Brown's, said to him: "You ought not to do this. Kansas is too greatly