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.)
afterwards appeared from his testimony on the trial, carefully took
minutes--but, as it proved, very confused and incorrect ones--of all
that I said, hoping thus to secure something that might turn out to my
disadvantage. Another person, with whom I had a good deal of
conversation, and who was afterwards produced as a witness against me,
was William H. Craig, in my opinion a much more conscientious person
than Orme, who seemed to think that it was part of his duty, as a
police-officer, to testify to something, at all hazards, to help on a
conviction. But this is a subject to which I shall have occasion to
return presently.
In one particular, at least, the testimony of both these witnesses was
correct enough. They both testified to my expressing pretty serious
apprehensions of what the result to myself was likely to be. What the
particular provisions were, in the District of Columbia, as to helping
slaves to escape, I did not know; but I had heard that, in some of the
slave-states, they were very severe; in fact, I was assured by Craig
that I had committed the highest crime, next to murder, known in their
laws. Under these circumstances, I made up my mind that the least
penalty I should be apt to escape with was confinement in the
penitentiary for life; and it is quite probable that I endeavored to
console myself, as these witnesses testified, with the idea that, after
all, it might, in a religious point of view, be all for the best, as I
should thus be removed from temptation, and have ample time for
reflection and repentance. But my apprehensions were by no means limited
to what I might suffer under the forms of law. From the temper exhibited
by some of my captors, and from the vindictive fury with which the idea
of enabling the enslaved to regain their liberty was, I knew, generally
regarded at the south, I apprehended more sudden and summary
proceedings; and what happened afterwards at Washington proved that
these apprehensions were not wholly unfounded. The idea of being torn in
pieces by a furious mob was exceedingly disagreeable. Many men, who
might not fear death, might yet not choose to meet it in that shape. I
called to mind the apology of the Methodist minister, who, just after a
declaration of his that he was not afraid to die, ran away from a
furious bull that attacked him,--"that, though not fearing death, he did
not like to be torn in pieces by a mad bull." I related this anecdote to
Craig, and, as he testified on the trial, expressed my preference to be
taken on the deck of the steamer and shot at once, rather than to be
given up to a Washington mob to be baited and murdered. I talked pretty
freely with Orme and Craig about myself, the circumstances under which I
had undertaken this enterprise, my motives to it, my family, my past
misfortunes, and the fate that probably awaited me; but they failed to
extract from me, what they seemed chiefly to desire, any information
which would implicate others.
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