patient hearing of his statements, a candid opinion concerning his plan, and, if that were favorable, then such aid in money and support as we could give him. We listened until after midnight, proposing objections and raising difficulties; but nothing could shake the purpose of the old Puritan. Every difficulty had been foreseen and provided against in some manner; the grand difficulty of all,—the manifest hopelessness of undertaking anything so vast with such slender means,—was met with the text of Scripture: 'If God be for us, who can be against us?' He had made nearly all his arrangements: he had so many men enlisted, so many hundred weapons; all he now wanted was the small sum of money. With that he would open his campaign in the spring, and he had no doubt that the enterprise 'would pay' as he said.
"On the 23d of February the discussion was renewed, and, as usually happened when he had time enough, Captain Brown began to prevail over the objections of his friends. At any rate, they saw that they must either stand by him, or leave him to dash himself alone against the fortress he was determined to assault. To withhold aid would only delay, not prevent him; nothing short of betraying him to the enemy would do that. As the sun was setting over the snowy hills of the region where we met, I walked for an hour with Gerrit Smith among those woods and fields (then included in his broad manor) which his father had purchased of the Indians and bequeathed to him. Brown was
