These manifestations are not without example in the history of the Antislavery cause elsewhere. From the beginning, Slave-Masters have encountered argument by brutality and violence. St. Jerome had before him their type, when he described certain persons “whose words are in their fists and syllogisms in their heels.”[94] If we go back to the earliest of Abolitionists, the wonderful Portuguese preacher, Vieyra, we find that his matchless eloquence and unquestioned piety did not save him from indignity. The good man was seized and imprisoned, while one of the principal Slave-Masters asked him, in mockery, “where were all his learning and all his genius now, if they could not deliver him in this extremity?”[95] He was of the Catholic Church. But the spirit of Slavery is the same in all churches. A renowned Quaker minister of the last century, Thomas Chalkley, while on a visit at Barbadoes, having simply recommended charity to the slaves, without presuming to breathe a word against Slavery itself, was first met by disturbance in the meeting, and afterward, on the highway, in open day, was shot at by one of the exasperated planters, with a fowling-piece “loaded with small shot, ten of which made marks, and several drew blood.”[96] In England, while the Slave-Trade was under discussion, the same spirit raged. Wilberforce, who represented the cause of Abolition in Parliament, was threatened with personal violence; Clarkson, who represented the same cause before the people, was assaulted by the infuriate Slave-Traders, and narrowly escaped being hustled into the dock; and Roscoe, the accomplished historian, on return to Liverpool from his seat in Parliament, where he had signalized himself as an opponent of the Slave-Trade, was met at the entrance of the town by a savage mob, composed of persons interested in the traffic, armed with _knives and bludgeons_, the distinctive arguments and companions of the partisans of Slavery. Even in the Free States, these same partisans from the beginning acted under the inspiration of violence. The demon of Slavery entered into them, and through its influence they have behaved like Slave-Masters. Public meetings for the discussion of Slavery have been interrupted; public halls, dedicated to its discussion, have been destroyed or burned to the ground. In all our populous cities the great rights of speech and of the press have been assailed precisely as in the Slave States. In Boston, an early and most devoted Abolitionist was dragged through the streets with a halter about his neck; and in Illinois, another, while defending his press, was ferociously murdered. The former yet lives to speak for himself, while the latter lives in his eloquent brother, a Representative from Illinois in the other House.[97] Thus does Slavery show its natural character even at a distance.