In all of the cases thus far considered the charges upon which the transgressors of the Fugitive Slave laws were prosecuted were, in general terms, harboring and concealing runaways, obstructing their arrest, or aiding in their rescue. There was, however, one case in which the crime alleged in the indictment was much more serious, being nothing less than treason against the United States. This was the famous Christiana case, marked not only by the nature of the indictment, but by the organized resistance to arrest made by the slaves and their friends, and by the violent death of one of the attacking party. The frequent abduction of negroes from the neighborhood of Christiana, in southeastern Pennsylvania, seems to have given occasion for the formation, about 1851, of a league for self-protection among the many colored persons living in that region.[818] The leading spirit in this association was William Parker, a fugitive slave whose house was a refuge for other runaways. On September 10, Parker and his neighbors received word from the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia that Gorsuch, a slaveholder of Maryland, had procured warrants for the arrest of two of his slaves, known to be staying at Parker's house. When, therefore, Gorsuch with his son and some friends appeared upon the scene about daybreak on the morning of the 11th, and, having broken into the house, demanded the fugitives, the negroes lost little time in sounding a horn from one of the upper-story windows to summon their friends. From fifty to one hundred men, armed with guns, clubs and corn-cutters, soon came up. Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis, two Quakers, who had been drawn to the place by the disturbance, declined to join the marshal's posse and help arrest the slaves; but they advised the negroes against resisting the law, and warned Gorsuch and his party to depart if they would prevent bloodshed. Neither side would yield, and a fight was soon in progress. In the course of the conflict the slave-owner was killed, his son severely wounded, and the fugitives managed to escape. [818] Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, pp. 107, 108; 2 _Wallace Jr.'s Reports_, 159.