Such is a contemporary record of sensibilities in a Slave State; and let it be mentioned to the honor of Maryland. But it is reasonable to suppose that sensibilities in States further north were touched still more. Mr. Quincy, whose living memory embraces this early period, reports, that, when an enforcement of this Act was attempted in Boston, the crowd thronging the room of the magistrate quietly and spontaneously opened a lane for the fugitive, who was thus enabled to save himself from Slavery, and also save the country from the dishonor of such a sacrifice. Almost at the same time, in patriotic Vermont, a judge of the Supreme Court of the State, on application for the surrender of an alleged slave, accompanied by documentary evidence, refused to comply, _unless the master could show a bill of sale from the Almighty_. Such was the popular feeling which this earlier legislation encountered. There is authentic evidence that this popular feeling was recognized by President Washington as a proper guide, where he was personally interested. A slave of Mrs. Washington had escaped to New Hampshire. The President, in an autograph letter, which has been produced in the Senate,[346] addressed to Mr. Whipple, the collector at Portsmouth, and dated at Philadelphia, November 28, 1796, after expressing the desire of “her mistress” for the return of the slave, lays down the following rule of conduct:-- “I do not mean, however, by this request, that _such violent measures_ should be used as _would excite_ a mob or riot, which might be the case, if she has adherents, _or even uneasy sensations in the minds of well-disposed citizens_. Rather than either of these should happen, I would forego her services altogether,--and the example, also, which is of infinite more importance.” The fugitive never was returned, but survived to a good old age, down to a recent period,--a living witness to that public opinion which made even the mildest of Fugitive Slave Acts a dead letter.