There is one pleasant thing about this position of Mr. Webster. He is alarmed at the fire which has been kindled in his rear. He finds "considerable differences of opinion prevail ... on the subject of that speech," and is "grateful to receive ... opinions so decidedly concurring with" his own,--so he tells the citizens of Newburyport. He feels obliged to do something to escape the obloquy which naturally comes upon him. So he revises his speech; now supplying an omission, now altering a little; authorizes another great man to transpose his relative pronoun, and anchor it fast to another antecedent; appeals to amendments in the senatorial desk, designed to secure a jury trial for fugitive slaves; derides his opponents, and compares them with the patriots of ancient times. Here is his letter to the citizens of Newburyport--a very remarkable document. It contains some surprising legal doctrines, which I leave others to pass upon. But in it he explains the fugitive slave law of 1793, which does not "provide for the trial of any question whatever by jury, in the State in which the arrest is made." "At that time," nobody regarded any of the provisions of that bill as "repugnant to religion, liberty, the Constitution, or humanity;" and he has "no more objections to the provisions of this law, than was seen to them" by the framers of the law itself. If he sees therein nothing "repugnant to religion, liberty, the Constitution, or humanity," then why transpose that relative pronoun, and have an amendment "which provides expressly for the right of trial by jury?" "In order to allay excitement," he answers, "and remove objections." "There are many difficulties, however, attending any such provision [of a jury trial]; and a main one, and perhaps the only insuperable one, has been created by the States themselves, by making it a penal offence in their own officers, to render any aid in apprehending or securing such fugitives, and absolutely refusing the use of their jails for keeping them in custody, till a jury could be impanelled, witnesses summoned, and a regular trial be had."