In Boston, Brown met Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, a young man but a year and a half out of Harvard, who was then secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee. "He was on fire for the anti-slavery cause, and ready to worship any of its militant leaders."[220] Brown, being a militant leader, made a deep impression upon this susceptible young enthusiast, who reported his find to Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "the fighting young Unitarian Parson of Worcester," in a letter, as follows:[221] "Old Brown" of Kansas is now in Boston, with one of his sons, working for an object in which you will heartily sympathize--raising and arming a company of men for the future protection of Kansas. He wishes to raise $30,000 to arm a company, such as he thinks he can raise this present winter, but will, as I understand him, take what money he can raise and use it as far as it will go. Can you not come to Boston tomorrow or next day and see Capt. Brown? If not, please indicate when you will be in Worcester, so he can see you. I like the man from what I have seen--and his deeds ought to bear witness for him. It will be observed that this was to be a cash transaction: he will "take what money he can raise and use it as far as it will go." Most persons will scan this proposal with grave suspicion, it bears so prominently the brand of the faker; but it will create no surprise in the minds of those who are familiar with Brown's criminal conduct while in commercial life, and with his career of murder and robbery and association with thieves in Kansas. In his enthusiasm for his Kansas hero, Mr. Sanborn led Brown, as the Psalmist had been led, "into green pastures and beside the still waters." Through him he met Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Patrick Tracy Jackson, George L. Stearns, Dr. Samuel Cabot, Judge Thomas Russell, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry D. Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and other notable persons, all of whom were intensely interested in the paramount political question of the day, and especially in the contest going on in Kansas to make it a Free State. His Eastern campaign opened auspiciously. As the popular leader of a popular cause, he struck the popular fancy. He presented himself to the public, "modestly," as being the leader of the "fighting" forces of the Territory; and as having come from the "front" to organize a more effective force, in order that he might render still more efficient services. January 7th, armed with his congratulatory letter from Governor Robinson, he called upon Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, who wrote of him, admiringly, as follows: