Sharp's rifles as part payment of the committee's indebtedness. They were of small account to Mr. Stearns. He knew them to be in good hands, and troubled himself no further about them, either the rifles or the revolvers; although keeping up from time to time a correspondence with his friend upon the all-engrossing subject. "In February of 1859, John Brown was in Boston, and talked with some of his friends about the feasibility of entrenching himself, with a little band of men, in the mountains of Virginia, familiar to him from having surveyed them as engineer in earlier life. His plan was to open communication with the slaves of neighboring plantations, collect them together, and send them off in squads, as he had done in Missouri, 'without snapping a gun.' Mr. Stearns had so much more faith in John Brown's opposition to _Slavery_, than in any theories he advanced of the _modus operandi_, that they produced much less impression on his mind than upon some others gifted with more genius for details. _From first to last, he believed in John Brown._ His plans, or theories, might be feasible, or they might not. If the glorious old man wanted money to try his plans, he should have it. His plans might fail; probably would, but _he_ could never be a failure. There he stood, unconquerable, in the panoply of divine Justice. Both of these men were of the martyr type. No thought or consideration for themselves, for _history_, or the estimation of others, ever entered into their calculations. It was the service of _Truth_ and _Right_ which brought them together, and in that service they were ready to die.