My first impulse was to return home, attend to my regular business, defy them, and, if necessary, sell my life as dearly as possible.  But what could one man, and he a youth and a stranger, do against a corrupt and reckless populace?  When suspicion was once aroused, I knew that the least spark would kindle it into a flame.  Society there was completely barbarous in its character, so far as law was concerned.  The mob has ruled for years, and the spirit of rebellion, now rampant all over the South, had taken form and expressed itself in these vigilance committees, constituting as cruel courts of inquiry as was ever the Inquisition.

Instances of recent occurrence of most atrocious character were in my mind, showing that these men would persecute me to death, sooner or later, if I remained.  Only two nights before, a part of this same gang had murdered a Mr. Crawford, who was a native of Sullivan county, New York, but had lived in Arkansas sixteen years—­a man against whom no charge could justly be brought.  A few days previous to this murder a man named Washburne was whipped to death by four ruffians, of whom Cavins was one.  His only crime was that he was a Northern man.  His body was thrown into the St. Francis river, after the diabolical deed was consummated.  I had heard these horrible recitals until my blood curdled, and I saw there was no hope but in leaving this hell upon earth.

The simple knowledge that I had ever lived in New York would, I think, have hung me without fail that night.

The causes of this mad lawlessness I may not fully understand.  Some of them lie upon the surface.  Reckless men settled there originally, and, living beyond the control of calmly and justly administered law, they gradually resolved themselves into a court, the most daring and active-minded becoming the self-elected leaders.

Then the system of slavery gives them almost unlimited power over the persons and lives of large numbers of human beings, and this fosters a spirit of despotism so natural to all men, even the most civilized, when invested with supreme power.

And, still further, some fanatical men from the North, determined violently to break the bonds of the poor slave, had been found in recent years spreading incendiary works among the poor white population and the negroes who could read, thus endangering the lives of the masters and their families.  As a matter of self-defence, Northern men were watched with unremitting and eagle-eyed vigilance.

But whether all this explains the fact or not, no Northern man’s life was safe for an hour in that section of Arkansas at the time of which I speak.  Hence I concluded that their advice was good, though I must lose what interest I had in my business partnership.  Then, how was I to travel thirty miles before daybreak, as it was now two o’clock?  I immediately took the road to Helena, on the Mississippi river.  I will not record all my thoughts during that ride—­homeless, friendless, and, though innocent of crime, hunted like a very murderer, in free and enlightened America!