Brown knew about the hot vengeful breath which had swept the white population from the fair face of San Domingo. And he was familiar with the attempts which had been made to relight its fires in this country, and to start the tornado of death. He was familiar with what his predecessors in the insurrection business had done, and with what they had tried to do. He knew, too, or thought he knew, why they had failed. Naturally he sought to avoid the mistakes which they had committed, and to safeguard his operations by improving upon their methods. The seizure of Harper's Ferry was not a "Foray into Virginia," as Mr. Sanborn chooses to call it: neither was it a "Raid" as Mr. Villard, with conspicuous persistence, seeks to make it appear to have been; nor was it either an "attack" upon the town or a "blow" or any other specious form of movement. Brown selected the place and "occupied" it as the base for his military operations, because he intended to use the generous supplies of war material, which were then in store there, for the equipment of the army that he planned to organize. The occupation was to be permanent. It was a stratagem of his campaign, an incident in his main design. By the logic of the assassinations, Brown believed he would secure immunity from an immediate, or counter assault. Instead of being compelled to defend his position against attack by the militia, and by companies of armed citizens, which might be improvised for the occasion, he contemplated spending the first "few weeks" of the campaign in comparative security; publishing, far and wide, the proclamation of the Provisional Government, with its lure for adventurers in civil and military life; debauching the citizenship of the country and the soldiery of the Union. He also contemplated having leisure to attend such diplomatic functions as might be incidental to the situation, including negotiations with foreign nations, and the problems of "Foreign intervention," Northern conventions, etc.[423]