“Keep a sharp look-out, Mr. Jones! The first vessel that heaves in sight for New Orleans shall take him if it costs me a hundred dollars. And if he gets to Boston, I’ll tie him hand and foot, and send him or fetch him back the first chance, or my name’s not Bangham!” He foamed off into the cabin. Who’ll send me back after all I’ve gone through? Who’ll be mean enough to do it? Antony had received his answer. CHAPTER I. THE REIGN OF TERROR. If, on or about the twenty-fifth of May, 1852, a fugitive from Southern tyranny were to arrive in Boston, he would probably very soon discover two things—first, that he must seek refuge with the people of his own color, in the quarter vulgarly known as Nigger Hill; secondly, that though they had once lived there in safety, neither he nor they could live there in safety any more. There were, at that period, about three thousand colored people, a large proportion of them fugitives, residing in Boston, and the greater part of them lived in the quarter above mentioned. It was on the slope of Beacon Hill—one of the three hills which gave to the town its old name of Trimount. On the crown of the hill towered the domed State House; behind and around it rose, street on street descending, the dwellings of the aristocracy; and behind them, a deep fringe of humble poverty, rose, street on street, the dingy dwellings of the fugitives. There was a maxim of statesmanship then current: “Take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor.” It had been acted upon. The rich had been taken care of, and they had taken such care of these poor, that at that period there was no safety for them, as for two years previous there had been no safety for them in the city of Boston. Sidney’s Latin blazed in gold on the walls of that State House: _Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem_—The State seeks by the sword the calm repose of liberty. But the holy legend was dim, and not with the sword of Sidney, nor with the sword of the Spirit, sought Boston the calm repose of liberty for the poor fugitives who had fled from the meanest and the vilest tyranny that ever blackened the world.