existing state of the public feeling, be safe), it may be imagined that
my slumbers were not very sound.

Meanwhile the rage of the mob had taken, for the moment, another
direction. I had heard it said, while we were coming up in the
steamboat, that the abolition press must be stopped; and the mob
accordingly, as the night came on, gathered about the office of the
_National Era_, with threats to destroy it. Some little mischief was
done; but the property-holders in the city, well aware how dependent
Washington is upon the liberality of Congress, were unwilling that
anything should occur to place the District in bad odor at the north.
Some of them, also, it is but justice to believe, could not entirely
give in to the slave-holding doctrine and practice of suppressing free
discussion by force; and, by their efforts, seconded by a drenching
storm of rain, that came on between nine and ten o'clock, the mob were
persuaded to disperse for the present. The jail was guarded that night
by a strong body of police, serious apprehensions being entertained,
lest the mob, instigated by the violence of many southern members of
Congress, should break in and lynch us. Great apprehension, also, seemed
to be felt at the jail, lest we might be rescued; and we were subject,
during the night, to frequent examinations, to see that all was safe.
Great was the terror, as well as the rage, which the abolitionists
appeared to inspire. They seemed to be thought capable, if not very
narrowly watched, of taking us off through the roof, or the stone floor,
or out of the iron-barred doors; and, from the half-frightened looks
which the keepers gave me from time to time, I could plainly enough read
their thoughts,--that a fellow who had ventured on such an enterprise as
that of the Pearl was desperate and daring enough to attempt anything.
For a poor prisoner like me, so much in the power of his captors, and
without the slightest means, hopes, or even thoughts of escape, it was