were unsuccessful. A mob is not an orderly body, and a drunken mob
is hard to manage. General charges were freely made without much
point. One cried out, because I refused to drink with them: "This
should hang him; he is too white-livered to take a dram with
gentlemen, let him swing." "Yes," shouted another; "he is a cursed
Yankee teetotaler, hang him." In a quiet way I showed them that this
was not the indictment, and that hanging would be a severe
punishment for such a sin of omission. To this rejoinder some
assented, and the tide seemed for a moment to be setting in my
favor, when another urged, "He is too 'tarnal smart for this
country. He talks like a Philadelphia lawyer."--Arkansas would be a
poor place for the members of the legal profession from the city of
brotherly love.--"He comes here to teach us ignorant backwoodsmen.
We'll show him a new trick, how to stretch hemp, the cursed Yankee."
At length the chairman got them to the specified crime. "An
abolitionist! An abolitionist!" they cried with intense rage,--some
of them were too drunk to pronounce the word,--but the more sober
ones prevailed, and they examined the evidence. The hearsay amounted
to nothing, and they plied me with questions as to my views on
slavery. I answered promptly, but briefly and honestly, that I held
no views on that subject to which they _should_ object, and that I
had never interfered with the institution since I came among them,
nor did I intend to do so. My calmness seemed to baffle them for a
moment, but the bottle was passed, and I noticed that all reason
fled from the great majority. Words grew hot and fierce, and eyes
flashed fire, while some actually gnashed their teeth in rage. I saw
that the mob would soon be uncontrollable unless the chairman
brought matters to an end, and suggested, that as there was no
evidence against me, they should bring the trial to a close, when to
my surprise they produced the letter written to my father but