Canada that the attack on Harper's Ferry was made. [507] Sanborn, _The Life and Letters of John Brown_, p. 483. See the letter of "The Parallels." [508] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, p. 221. [509] Redpath, _The Public Life of Captain John Brown_, p. 221. [510] Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, p. 222, note. For more than ten years John Brown had cherished a plan for the liberation of the slaves, in which abduction was to be in a measure employed. This plan he had revealed to Frederick Douglass as early as 1847. It is given in Douglass' words: "'The true object to be sought,' said Brown, 'is first of all to destroy the money value of slave property; and that can only be done by rendering such property insecure. My plan then is to take at first about twenty-five picked men, and begin on a small scale; supply them arms and ammunition; post them in squads of five on a line of twenty-five miles, the most persuasive and judicious of whom shall go down to the fields from time to time, as opportunity offers, and induce the slaves to join them, seeking and selecting the most restless and daring.'... With care and enterprise he thought he could soon gather a force of one hundred hardy men.... When these were properly drilled, ... they would run off the slaves in larger numbers, retain the brave and strong ones in the mountains, and send the weak and timid to the North by the Underground Railroad: his operations would be enlarged with increasing numbers, and would not be confined to one locality.... 'If,' said Brown, 'we could drive slavery out of _one county_, ... it would weaken the system throughout the state.' The enemy's country would afford subsistence, the fastnesses of the Alleghanies abundant protection, and a series of stations through Pennsylvania to the Canadian border a means of egress for timid slaves."[511] [511] _Life of Frederick Douglass_, 1881, pp. 280, 281 and 318, 319. Also Hinton, _John Brown and His Men_, pp. 30, 31, 32.