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| PREFACE. 3 So also do the heroic and faithful services of Samuel D. Burris demand special reference and commemoration, for his connection with the U. G. R. R. cost him not only imprisonment and the most barbarous treatment, but likewise the loss of his freedom. He was sold on the auction block. Here too come the overwhelming claims of S. A. Smith, who at the sad cost to himself of many of the best years of his life in the Richmond penitentiary, boxed up Henry Box Brown and others in Richmond, and committed them to Adams' Express office, to be carried in this most extraordinary manner to freedom. We must not omit from these records the boldness and the hazard of the unparalleled undertakings of Captains Drayton, Lee, Baylis, &c. While the Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia was in no wise responsible for the suffering incurred by many of those who helped the slave, yet in order to show how men were moved to lend an ear to those hungering and thirsting for freedom, and to what extent the relentless spirit of Slavery would go in wreaking vengeance upon them—out of the many who were called upon to suffer thus, the individual cases here brought forward must suffice. Without introducing a few of such incidents the records would necessarily be incomplete. Those who come after us seeking for information in regard to the existence, atrocity, struggles and destruction of Slavery, will have no trouble in finding this hydra-headed monster ruling and tyrannizing over Church and State, North and South, "white and black, without let or hindrance, for at least several generations. Nor will posterity have any difficulty in finding the deeds of the brave and invincible opposers of Slavery, who in the language of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, declared without concealment and without compromise : " I am in earnest, I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard." While this resolute spirit actuated the hearts of all true abolitionists, it was a peculiar satisfaction and gratification to them to know that the slaves themselves were struggling and hungering for deliverance. Hence such evidence from this quarter never failed to meet with hearty sympathy and aid. But here the enemy was never willingly allowed to investigate. |