About the time that I reentered the Bruce family, an event occurred of disastrous import to the colored people.  The slave Hamlin, the first fugitive that came under the new law, was given up by the bloodhounds of the north to the bloodhounds of the south.  It was the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored population.  The great city rushed on in its whirl of excitement, taking no note of the “short and simple annals of the poor.”  But while fashionables were listening to the thrilling voice of Jenny Lind in Metropolitan Hall, the thrilling voices of poor hunted colored people went up, in an agony of supplication, to the Lord, from Zion’s church.  Many families, who had lived in the city for twenty years, fled from it now.  Many a poor washerwoman, who, by hard labor, had made herself a comfortable home, was obliged to sacrifice her furniture, bid a hurried farewell to friends, and seek her fortune among strangers in Canada.  Many a wife discovered a secret she had never known before—­that her husband was a fugitive, and must leave her to insure his own safety.  Worse still, many a husband discovered that his wife had fled from slavery years ago, and as “the child follows the condition of its mother,” the children of his love were liable to be seized and carried into slavery.  Every where, in those humble homes, there was consternation and anguish.  But what cared the legislators of the “dominant race” for the blood they were crushing out of trampled hearts?

When my brother William spent his last evening with me, before he went to California, we talked nearly all the time of the distress brought on our oppressed people by the passage of this iniquitous law; and never had I seen him manifest such bitterness of spirit, such stern hostility to our oppressors.  He was himself free from the operation of the law; for he did not run from any Slaveholding State, being brought into the Free States by his master.  But I was subject to it; and so were hundreds of intelligent and industrious people all around us.  I seldom ventured into the streets; and when it was necessary to do an errand for Mrs. Bruce, or any of the family, I went as much as possible through back streets and by-ways.  What a disgrace to a city calling itself free, that inhabitants, guiltless of offence, and seeking to perform their duties conscientiously, should be condemned to live in such incessant fear, and have nowhere to turn for protection!  This state of things, of course, gave rise to many impromptu vigilance committees.  Every colored person, and every friend of their persecuted race, kept their eyes wide open.  Every evening I examined the newspapers carefully, to see what Southerners had put up at the hotels.  I did this for my own sake, thinking my young mistress and her husband might be among the list; I wished also to give information to others, if necessary; for if many were “running to and fro,” I resolved that “knowledge should be increased.”