For, alas! there was a grand-jury, and the Salmonean thunder of the fugitive slave bill judge fell harmless--quenched, conquered, disgraced, and brutal,--to the ground. Poor fugitive slave bill Court! It can only gnash its teeth against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall; only bark and yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl against the Higher Law of God! it cannot bite! Poor, imbecile, malignant Court! What a pity that the fugitive slave bill judge was not himself the grand-jury, to order the indictment! what a shame that the attorney was not a petty jury to convict! Then New England, like Old, might have had her "bloody assizes," and Boston streets might have streamed with the heart's gore of noble men and women; and human heads might have decked the pinnacles all round the town; and Judge Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their place with Judge Jeffreys and John Boilman of old. What a pity that we have a grand-jury and a traverse jury to stand between the malignant arm of the Slave-hunter and the heart of you and me![203] [Footnote 203: 2 Parker's Additional, p. 281.] The grand-jury found no bill and were discharged. In a Fourth of July Sermon "Of the Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America," I said:-- "Perhaps the Court will try again, and find a more pliant Grand-Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me suggest to the Court that the next time it should pack its Jury from the Marshal's 'Guard.' Then there will be Unity of Idea; of action too,--the Court a figure of equilibrium." The audacious Grand-Jury was discharged. A new one was summoned; this time it was constructed out of the right material. Before that, Gentlemen, we had had the Judge or his kinsmen writing for the fugitive slave bill in the newspapers; getting up public meetings in behalf of man-stealing in Boston; writing letters in support of the same; procuring opinions in favor of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave bill; nay, kidnapping men and sending them into eternal bondage, and in the newspapers defending the act; but we had none of them in the Jury box. On the new Grand-Jury appeared Mr. William W. Greenough, the brother-in-law of Hon. Judge Curtis--each married a daughter of Mr. Charles P. Curtis. Mr. Greenough "was very active in his endeavors to procure an indictment" against me; and a bill was found.