It is a relief to turn from these slanders to the testimony of his
more truthful, but frightened jailers and hangmen. Governor Wise
speaks far more justly and appreciatingly of him than any Northern
editor, or politician, or public personage, that I chance to have
heard from. I know that you can afford to hear him again on this
subject. He says: "They are themselves mistaken who take him to
be madman.... He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it is
but just to him to say, that he was humane to his prisoners....
And he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of
truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous," (I leave that part
to Mr. Wise,) "but firm, truthful, and intelligent. His men, too,
who survive, are like him.... Colonel Washington says that he
was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and
death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he
felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held his rifle
with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure,
encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as
they could. Of the three white prisoners, Brown, Stephens, and
Coppic, it was hard to say which was most firm."

Almost the first Northern men whom the slaveholder has learned to
respect!

The testimony of Mr. Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the
same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his
conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary
ruffian, fanatic, or madman."

"All is quiet at Harper's Ferry," say the journals. What is the