At the time appointed I was ready with my defence--which I now print for the Country. It is a Minister's performance, not a lawyer's. Of course, I knew that the Court would not have allowed me to proceed with such a defence--and that I should be obliged to deliver it through the press. Had there been an actual jury trial, I should have had many other things to offer in reference to the Government's evidence, to the testimony given before the grand-jury, and to the conduct of some of the grand-jurors themselves. So the latter part of the defence is only the skeleton of what it otherwise might have been,--the geological material of the country, the Flora and Fauna left out. It would have been better to publish it immediately after the decision of the case: but my _brief_ was not for the printer, and as many duties occurred at that time, it was not till now, in a little vacation from severer toils, that I have found leisure to write out my defence in full. Fellow-Citizens and Friends, I present it to you in hopes that it may serve the great cause of Human Freedom in America and the world; surely, it has seldom been in more danger. THEODORE PARKER. BOSTON, _24th August_, 1855. INTRODUCTION. On Tuesday, the 23d of May, 1854, Charles F. Suttle of Virginia, presented to Edward Greeley Loring, Esquire, of Boston, Commissioner, a complaint under the fugitive slave bill--Act of September 18th, 1850--praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns. The next day, Wednesday, May 24th, Commissioner Loring issued the warrant: Mr. Burns was seized in the course of the evening of that day, on the false pretext of burglary, and carried to the Suffolk County Court House in which he was confined by the Marshal, under the above-named warrant, and there kept imprisoned under a strong and armed guard. On the 25th, at about nine o'clock in the morning, the Commissioner proceeded to hear and decide the case in the Circuit Court room, in which were stationed about sixty men serving as the Marshal's guard. Seth J. Thomas, Esquire, and Edward Griffin Parker, Esquire, members of the Suffolk Bar, appeared as counsel for Mr. Suttle to help him and Commissioner Loring make a man a Slave. Mr. Burns was kept in irons and surrounded by "the guard." The Slave-hunter's documents were immediately presented, and his witness was sworn and proceeded to testify.