Stowe in Brunswick from Mrs. Edward Beecher and other
friends, describing the heart-rending scenes which were the inevitable
results of the enforcement of this terrible law. Cities were more
available for the capturing of escaped slaves than the country, and
Boston, which claimed to have the cradle of liberty, opened her doors
to the slavehunters. The sorrow and anguish caused thereby no pen
could describe. Families were broken up. Some hid in garrets and
cellars. Some fled to the wharves and embarked in ships and sailed for
Europe. Others went to Canada. One poor fellow who was doing good
business as a crockery merchant, and supporting his family well, when
he got notice that his master, whom he had left many years before, was
after him, set out for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did not dare
to take a public conveyance. He froze both of his feet on the journey,
and they had to be amputated. Mrs. Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs.
Stowe's son, writing of this period, says:---
"I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was
murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and
intemperance, when our home was in Illinois. These terrible things
which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this
spirit. What can I do? I thought. Not much myself, but I know one who
can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, telling her of various
heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
Law.
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