Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1845-11-28
From the .7nti-Slavery Reporter.
MISS DELLA A. WEBSTER, AND THE
ESCAPE OF SLAVES.

VI II iC'
This lady was present at the great East
ern Convention. At the request of individu-
ais she was brought forward and introduced
to the meeting. A friend, whose name We
cannot recall, made a statement of some
length on her behalf. This statement averred
that she was an abolitionist and not a coloni-
zationist; that she was so before she went to
kentucky and while she was there; that while
there she did aid in the escape of slaves
having on more than one occasion empticd
her purse for the purpose; and that she aided
the escape OF the very slaves, on charge of
which she was arrested. The object of the
statement was to reconcile these facts with
certain remarks in Miss Webster's letters and
INDEPENDENTLY, her denial, in Kentucky,
that she was an abolitionist and had done the
things alledged. The plain Saxon of the ex-
PLANTATION was, that her letters were written
for her friends and not for the public, and that
as they knew her sentiments before she left,
and certain equivocal passages were under
scored, &c., and she assured them of ''no
change" in her views, they would under
stand them, though written so as naturally
enough to deceive her keepers and mislead
the public, and that she was Obliged to write
thus in order to get any word to her friends.
And on the other point, the explanation was
a DlhN upon III WOIu otuuCG I'LL DIV ulu
not seduce slaves to run away, to be sure,
but only counselled or aided such as were of
themselves disposed to go.
We never saw Miss Webster before; and
we never read her book until on our way from
the Convention-having there bought it,
mainly to lend our mite towards relieving her
of her pecuniary embarrassments consequent
on her prosecution. We would gladly aid
her farther. Nothing but claims higher than
all personal considerations should ever lead
us to say, what we now feel compelled to.
We were not a little annoyed with the ex-
PLANTATION as given to the Convention, and
were on the point more than once of express
ing our condemnation of it. Since reading
the book, we feel bound to say, We hope we
may never hear it again. We pass over all
that might be said about the letters TO friends.
We fix only npon her denial of having aided
the escape of slaves. She admits in Boston,
by her friend, that she did it. In her book
and in Kentucky, she denies it. Nor will
we admit for a moment that any play upon
the term ''seduce," is to relieve her of the
charge and the guilt of falsehood, in the case.
1t is not true, as the explanation affirmed, that
all Miss Webster did in her book and in Ken
lucky was to deny the mere act of seducing
slaves. She denied more, as the extracts will
show. And if she did not, she knew right
well that denying that, in the way she did,
was understood as denying more.
While in Jail, before her trial, on the Odd
of November, she wrote to Richard Buckner,
Esq, Judge of Fayette Circuit. Court, implor
ing his intervention on her behalf. She tells
him, pp. 80, 3I,-"The face is the heaven
of the soul; and both physiognomists and
phrenologists give me the character of being
candid, ingenious, frank, open-hearted, anC
confding." And FIVE lines farther on, she
adds-"I have never in any way, shape, o
manner, seduced or endeapored to seduce AM
servant whatever to leave his or her maste
or mistress. And defy any one to bring
forward an instance in my whole history, tina
would comport with anything of that charac
ter" On the I'd of December she writes t
M. G.. Johnson, Esq, to solicit his service
as counsel. She says, p. 80, "Conscious o
innocence, and with a heart free frem guile
take the liberty to say, my Imprisonment i
an act of cruelty, injustice, and oppression
without a parallel this side the broad Allan
tic. | cannot comprehend why tits, ! shout
be,sO prosecuted by this most worthy Common
wealth. ! have said nothing to merit the al
imosity or displeasure of this community
My support and confidence is nC
in the breath of witnesses, but in the stubbor
ness of Truth. But though my character
as far above suspicion as the skies above tn
pavement, | know too well what innocence
often doomed to suffer-" On the trial a NJ
Grant testiGes, p. A, 81 talked with Mis-
Webster in relation tosLewis and the negroes
and she denied that she had anything to d
with them, and said she knew nothing aboI
them" Others testify the same; and Mis-