It may not be amiss to have given, in a single instance, this somewhat detailed account of the process of seizing, trying, and delivering up a man into slavery, whose only crime was that he had fled from a bondage "one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which our fathers rose in rebellion to throw off," Thomas Jefferson, the Virginian slaveholder, himself being witness.
Anthony Burns, having been sold into North Carolina, was afterwards purchased with money subscribed in Boston and vicinity, for the purpose, and returned to Boston.
The _illegality_ of the Mayor's conduct in ordering out the military, and giving to the Colonel of the regiment the entire control of the same, was fully shown by different and highly competent writers, among whom was P.W. Chandler, Esq., whose two articles, in the _Boston Advertiser_, deserve to be remembered with respect. The Mayor's excuse was that he desired to _keep the peace_. But these Massachusetts troops received pay for their day's work from the United States Government. Judge HOAR, in a charge to the Grand Jury, declared the act of the Mayor, in calling out the militia, to be an infraction of law.
STEPHEN PEMBROKE, and his two sons, _Robert_ and _Jacob_, 19 and 17 years of age, were arrested in New York almost simultaneously with the seizure of Burns in Boston; claimed as the slaves of David Smith and Jacob H. Grove, of Sharpsburg, Washington County, Maryland. They escaped May 1st, and came to New York, followed closely by their masters, who discovered their retreat in Thompson Street, and pounced upon them by night. At 8-1/2 o'clock, next morning, they were taken before United States Commissioner G.W. Morton, "where the case came up for the most summary and hasty hearing that has ever characterized our judicial proceedings." Dunning and Smith were counsel for the masters, but the fugitives had no counsel; and the hearing was finished, and a warrant granted to the slave claimants before the matter became known in the city. When Mr. Jay and Mr. Culver hastened to the court-room to offer their services to the prisoners, as counsel, they were assured by officers, _and by Commissioner Morton himself_, that the men wanted no counsel, and were not in the building. On search, however, it was found they were in the building, locked up in a room. They said they desired counsel and the aid of friends. A writ of _habeas corpus_ was obtained, but before it could be served the three men had been removed from the State, and were on their way to Baltimore. [See the published. Card of E.D. CULVER, Esq.] Stephen Pembroke was the brother, and his sons the nephews of Rev. Dr. Pennington, of New York City, Pastor of a Presbyterian (colored) Church. Stephen Pembroke was purchased and brought back to New York, ($1,000 having been contributed for that purpose,) and related his experience of the slave's life, at a public meeting, held in the Broadway Tabernacle, July 17, 1854. His sons had been sold, and remained in slavery.