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| 350 THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD. borhood about two miles west of Christiana, near the eastern border of Lancaster county, in pursuit of fugitive slaves. The party consisted of Edward Gorsuch, his son, Dickerson Gorsuch, Lis nephew, Dr. Pearce, Nicholas Hutehtns, and others, all from Baltimore county, Md., and one Henry H. Kline, a notorious slave-catching constable from Philadelphia, who had been deputized by Commissioner Ingrakam for this business. At about day-dawn they were discovered lying in an ambusli near the house of one William Parker, a colored man, by an inmate of the house, who had started for his work. He fled back to the house, pursued by the slnve-huntcrs, who entered the lower part of the house, but were unable to force their way into the upper part, to which the family had retired. A horn was blown from' an upper window; two shots were fired, both, as we believe, though we are not certain, by the assailants, one at the colored man who fled iuto the house, and the other at the inmates, through the window. Xo one was wounded by cither. A parley ensued. The slave-holder demanded his slaves, who he said were concealed in tlic house. The colored men presented themselves successively at the window, and asked if they were the slaves claimed ; Gorsuch said, that neither of them was his slave. They told him that they were the only colored men in the house, and were determined never to be taken iilive as slaves. Soon the colored people of the neighborhood, alarmed by the horn, began to gather, armed with guns, axes, corn-cutters, or clubs. Mutual threatening* were uttered l>y the two parties. The slave-holders told tho blacks that resistance would bo useless, as they had a party of thirty men in the woods near by. The blacks warned them again to leave, as they would die before they would go into Slavery. From an hour to an hour and a half passed iii these parleying*, angry conversations, and threats; the blacks increasing by new arrivals, until they probably nuhibered from thirty to fifty, most of them armed in some way. About this time, Cashier llanaway, u white man, and a Friend, who resided in the neighborhood, rode up, and was soon followed by Elijah Lewis, another Friend, a merchant, in Cooperville, both gentlemen highly esteemed as worthy and peaceable citizens. As they came up, Kline, the deputy marshal, ordered them to aid hini, as a United States officer, to capture the fugitive slaves. They refused of course, as would any man not utterly destitute of honor, humanity, and moral principle, and warned the assailants that it was madness for them to attempt to capture fugitive slaves there, or even to remain, and begged them if they wished to save their own lives, to leave the ground. Kline replied, "Do you really think so?" " Yes," was the answer, " the sooner you leave, the better, if you would prevent bloodshed." Kline then left the ground, retiring into a very safe distance into a cornfield, and toward the woods. The blacks were so exasperated by his threats, that, but for the interposition of the two white Friends, it is very doubtful whether he vrould have escaped without injury. Messrs. Hanaway and |