While in this position he received several more blows, when he fell against his desk, which upset, and he fell to the floor. While lying here, he was struck until the cane broke into pieces. _Mr. Sumner uttered no word_, and no one attempted to interfere, though a number of persons gathered around, crying, ‘Don’t interfere!‘ ‘Go it, Brooks!’ ‘Give the damned Abolitionists hell!’ &c. Mr. Crittenden was the first man to seize the perpetrator of the outrage, and take him off his victim. Several of his friends led him off, while Mr. Sumner lay on the floor until Mr. Morgan and Mr. Simonton and one or two others came in and took him into an adjoining room. I was the only person who saw the whole of the transaction, and, being so close to Mr. Sumner, I heard and saw all that was said and done. I afterwards had Mr. Brooks arrested for the offence, and on the trial of the case gave my testimony as I have here related it, and which is substantially correct. I had never known Mr. Sumner, and, as we belonged to different political parties, I had no prejudice in his favor. From beginning to end it was one of the most cold-blooded, high-handed outrages ever committed, and had Mr. Sumner not been a very large and powerfully built man, it must have resulted in his death. No ordinary man could possibly have withstood so many blows upon his bare head.” General James Watson Webb, afterwards Minister to Brazil, and at the time editor of the New York _Courier and Enquirer_, made the following report to his paper. “Those who witnessed the assault say, that, in receiving the blows, given in quick succession and with terrible force, Mr. Sumner attempted to rise from his seat, to which he was in a measure pinioned by his legs being under the desk,--the legs of which, like all the desks of the Senate Chamber, have plates of iron fastened to them, and these plates are firmly secured to the floor. His first attempt to rise was a failure, and he fell back into his chair, and the blows of his assailant continued to fall mercilessly upon his uncovered head. His second attempt ripped up the iron fastenings of his desk, and he precipitated himself forward, but, being blinded and stunned, wide of the direction in which Mr. Brooks stood. Prostrated on the floor, and covered with blood as I never saw man covered before, the assault continued, until Mr. Murray and Mr. Morgan, both members of the House of Representatives from New York, had time to come from the extreme southeast angle of the Senate Chamber, and who, forcing their way through the crowd of Senators, and others, in the midst of whom Mr. Sumner was lying senseless and being beaten, they seized the assailant and rescued the body of Sumner.”