Mr. Garrison’s writings attracted the attention of that devoted, self-sacrificing friend of the enslaved, Benjamin Lundy, of whom I have just now given some account. He urged him in 1828, and persuaded him in the autumn of 1829, to remove to Baltimore, and assist in editing _The Genius of Universal Emancipation_. There Mr. G. soon saw, with his own eyes, the atrocities of slavery and the inter-state slave-trade; there he discovered the real design and spirit of the Colonization scheme; there the radical doctrine of _immediate, unconditional_ emancipation was revealed to him. He soon made himself obnoxious to slaveholders by his faithful exposure of their cruelties; and his unsparing condemnation of their atrocious system of oppression. After he had been in Baltimore a few months, a Northern captain came there in a ship owned and freighted by a gentleman of Newburyport, Mr. Garrison’s birthplace. Failing to obtain another cargo, said captain, with the consent of his owner, took on board a load of slaves to be transported to New Orleans. Such an outrage on humanity, perpetrated by Massachusetts men, enkindled Mr. G.’s hottest indignation, and drew from his pen a scathing rebuke. He was forthwith arrested as both a civil and criminal offender. He was prosecuted for a libel upon the captain and owner of the ship “Francis,” and for disturbing the peace by attempting to excite the slaves to insurrection. It would be needless to spend time in proving that, in the presence of a slaveholding judge, before a slaveholding jury, surrounded by a community of incensed slaveholders, the young reformer did not have a fair trial. He was found guilty under both indictments. He was fined and sentenced to imprisonment a certain time, as the punishment for his alleged crime, and afterward, until the fine imposed for “the libel” should be paid. It was then and there that his free, undaunted spirit inscribed upon the walls of his cell that joyous, jubilant sonnet, which could have been written only by one conscious of innocence in the sight of the Holy God, of a great purpose and a sacred mission yet to be accomplished. “High walls and huge the body may confine, And iron grates obstruct the prisoner’s gaze, And massive bolts may baffle his design, And watchful keepers eye his devious ways; Yet scorns the immortal _mind_ this base control! No chain can bind _it_, and no cell enclose. Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole, And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes. It leaps from mount to mount. From vale to vale It wanders, plucking honeyed fruits and flowers. It visits home to hoar the fireside tale, Or in sweet converse pass the joyous hours. ’Tis up before the sun, roaming afar, And in its watches, wearies every star.”