"If thou art going, I advise thee not to call on the doctor, as I know how he feels about thy going, and all thy reasons will not satisfy him in the least." I told him if the doctor or any one else would go, I should feel easy to give it up, but otherwise I could not. During this conversation Melancthon Henry came in, as he said, "with his mite" of three silver dollars for brother Fairbanks. He said, "You are going into the lion's den, and my prayer is that you may be as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. I know the venom of the serpent is there in power, but God will give his children the wisdom without the poison." Melancthon was a son of Patrick Henry, who had emancipated him with his slave mother. He was a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, to which I was at that time attached. Soon after Captain Barker sent for me, and told me to refer Colonel Buckner to him in presenting my note of introduction, as he was favorably acquainted with the colonel and he should mention me as one of his friends. Arrived at Louisville about day-dawn, I took a hack, and ordered the hackman to place the trunk on the porch of the front entrance of the jailor's residence. As the colonel's wife answered the door-bell, I inquired for Colonel Buckner. She stepped back to call him, when in an undertone I heard, "Who is it?" "I don't know; she came in the hack and is genteelly dressed, and I think came from the boat." He "genteelly" met me, took Captain Barker's letter of introduction, and then introduced me to his wife and daughter, and to his wife's sister from Boston, who was there on a visit with her daughter, making quite a lively social circle. My errand was immediately made known, and the colonel excused himself for overhauling the trunk to take its contents to Calvin at once, as it was in the line of his duty as keeper of the prison to examine every thing brought in for prisoners; not that he expected to find anything improper for Fairbanks to receive. I told him I designed returning to Cincinnati on the same boat I came on, and it was going out at 4 P. M. "Why go so soon?" he asked. I replied, "My errand here is accomplished, when I see that these things are delivered to Calvin Fairbanks; and as I have a little pocket change, sent by his friends in Cincinnati, I would like to see Calvin, as I shall write his mother after my return." "I will see if the sheriff thinks it best. There was a great excitement in the city when Fairbanks was arrested and brought here, and Shotwell, the injured man who lost his servant Tamor and her child, is very much enraged, and being a man of wealth and influence here, I dare not take you in to see Fairbanks on my own responsibility; but I'll see the sheriff, and if he says you can see him it is all right." With a little note from me he took the trunk of things to Calvin, and brought back a receipt. As he handed it to me he said, "I suppose you will recognize his handwriting, so you'll know it's from him?"