struggle came, and resolved to sell my life dearly if it must be
sacrificed to the fury of a causeless persecution. To my
proposition to escape then, having a fleet horse, he would not
assent, as he had pledged his honor to take me to the Vigilance
Committee. Honor is as essential among lynchers as among thieves,
and all I could do was to brace myself for the encounter, of the
nature of which I had but an imperfect conception. About 12 o'clock
we reached the place, and I was ushered into the presence of fifty
or sixty as graceless scoundrels as even Arkansas can present, who
greeted me with hisses, groans, and cries of, "Hang him!" "Burn
him!" &c. Two-thirds of the mob were maddened by the vile liquor
which abounds in such localities, and few, if any, were entirely
sober. The hope that my innocence would protect me, which I had
cherished until now, vanished, for I well knew that drunken
cut-throats were blind to reason, and rather offended than attracted
by innocence.

Order was soon restored, and my friend Mr. Scruggs was called to the
chair. In this I saw a ray of hope. The constitution and by-laws of
the Vigilance Committee were read; the substance of which was, that
in the present troubled state of the country the citizens resolve
themselves into a court of justice to examine all Northern men, and
that any man of abolition principles shall be hung. The roll was
called, and I noticed that a large proportion of the men present
were members of the Committee; the others were boatmen and loafers
collected about the town. The court of Judge Lynch opened, and I was
put upon trial as an "Abolitionist whose business there was to
incite an insurrection among the slaves."

The first efforts of the chairman to get the witnesses to the point,