Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail: Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner PearlDrayton, Daniel
History
Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail: Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner Pearl
Drayton, Daniel
Abolitionists -- United States -- Biography; Drayton, Daniel, 1802-1857 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Fugitive slaves -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Maryland; Trials -- Washington (D.C.)
The steamer, with the Pearl in tow, crossed over from Point Lookout to
Piney Point, on the south shore of the Potomac, and here the Pearl was
left at anchor, a part of the steamer's company remaining to guard her,
while the steamer, having myself and the other white prisoners on board,
proceeded up Coan river for a supply of wood, having obtained which, she
again, about noon of Monday, took the Pearl in tow and started for
Washington.
The bearing, manner and aspect of the thirty-five armed persons by whom
we had been thus seized and bound, without the slightest shadow of
lawful authority, was sufficient to inspire a good deal of alarm. We had
been lying quietly at anchor in a harbor of Maryland; and, although the
owners of the slaves might have had a legal right to pursue and take
them back, what warrant or authority had they for seizing us and our
vessel? They could have brought none from the District of Columbia,
whose officers had no jurisdiction or authority in Cornfield harbor; nor
did they pretend to have any from the State of Maryland. Some of them
showed a good deal of excitement, and evinced a disposition to proceed
to lynch us at once. A man named Houver, who claimed as his property two
of the boys passengers on board the Pearl, put me some questions in a
very insolent tone; to which I replied, that I considered myself a
prisoner, and did not wish to answer any questions; whereupon one of the
bystanders, flourishing a dirk in my face, exclaimed, "If I was in his
place, I'd put this through you!" At Piney Point, one of the company
proposed to hang me up to the yard-arm, and make me confess; but the
more influential of those on board were not ready for any such
violence, though all were exceedingly anxious to get out of me the
history of the expedition, and who my employers were. That I had
employers, and persons of note too, was taken for granted on all hands;
nor did I think it worth my while to contradict it, though I declined
steadily to give any information on that point. Sayres and English very
readily told all that they knew. English, especially, was in a great
state of alarm, and cried most bitterly. I pitied him much, besides
feeling some compunctions at getting him thus into difficulty; and, upon
the representations which I made, that he came to Washington in perfect
ignorance of the object of the expedition, he was finally untied. As
Sayres was obliged to admit that he came to Washington to take away
colored passengers, he was not regarded with so much favor. But it was
evidently me whom they looked upon as the chief culprit, alone
possessing a knowledge of the history and origin of the expedition,
which they were so anxious to unravel. They accordingly went to work
very artfully to worm this secret out of me. I was placed in charge of
one Orme, a police-officer of Georgetown, whose manner towards me was
such as to inspire me with a certain confidence in him; who, as it
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