“Indeed I would not!” answered the Friend.  “My conscience would not permit me to do it.  It would be a great crime; because it would be disobedience to my own dearest convictions of right.  I should never expect to enjoy an hour of peace afterward.  I would do for a fugitive slave whatever I should like to have done for myself, under similar circumstances.  If he asked my protection, I would extend it to him to the utmost of my power.  If he was hungry, I would feed him.  If he was naked, I would clothe him.  If he needed advice, I would give such as I thought would be most beneficial to him.”

The cause was tried before Judge Bushrod Washington, nephew of General Washington.  Though a slaveholder himself, he manifested no partiality during the trial, which continued several days, with able arguments on both sides.  The counsel for the claimant maintained that Samuel Mason prevented the master from regaining his slave, by shutting his door, and refusing to open it.  The counsel for the defendant replied that there was much valuable and brittle property in the watchmaker’s shop, which would have been liable to robbery and destruction, if a promiscuous mob had been allowed to rush in.  Judge Washington summed up the evidence very clearly to the jury, who after retiring for deliberation a considerable time, returned into court, declaring that they could not agree upon a verdict, and probably never should agree.  They were ordered out again, and kept together till the court adjourned, when they were dismissed.

At the succeeding term, the case was tried again, with renewed energy and zeal.  But the jury, after being kept together ten days, were discharged without being able to agree upon a verdict.  Some, who were originally in favor of the defendant, became weary of their long confinement, and consented to go over to the slaveholder’s side; but one of them, named Benjamin Thaw, declared that he would eat his Christmas dinner in the jury-room, before he would consent to such a flagrant act of injustice.

His patience held out till the court adjourned.  Consequently a third trial became necessary; and the third jury brought in a verdict in favor of the watchmaker.

The expenses of these suits were estimated at seventeen hundred dollars.  Solomon Low was in limited circumstances; and this expenditure in prosecuting an innocent man was said to have caused his failure soon after.

THE DISGUISED SLAVEHOLDER.

A colored woman and her son were slaves to a man in East Jersey.  She had two sons in Philadelphia, who had been free several years, and her present master was unacquainted with them.  In 1827, she and her younger son escaped, and went to live in Philadelphia.  Her owner, knowing she had free sons in that city, concluded as a matter of course that she had sought their protection.  A few weeks after her flight, he followed her, and having assumed Quaker costume,