While I was being conducted out of the door, all manner of speech was hurled at me—­a bountiful supply of that sort of dialectics which America can beat all the world at handling.  However, the main desire of the mob at this point seemed to have been to get a sight of me; so they arraigned themselves in a double file, while I was conducted through the centre thereof, somewhat after the fashion of a military hero—­a committee man at each side, one in front and another behind.  Having passed completely through the file, the scoundrels then closed in upon me; some of them kicking me, some striking me in the side, once on the head, some pulling at my clothes and bruising my hat, and all of them hooting and hallooing after a manner similar to that which they practised when they first surrounded the house of Mr. Porter.

At length we reached the hotel—­a quarter of a mile distant.  The Committee were about to conduct me into the front parlour, when one fellow patriotically cried out, “God d——­n it, don’t carry that nigger into the front door.”  A true Yankee that!  I have a penny laid up for that fellow, if I should ever chance to meet him.

I was conducted into the back parlour of the hotel, as being the most secure.  Still the mob were not appeased, and besides, their numbers had increased.  They hung around the house.  Some of them opened the windows half-way and tried to clamber through them into the parlour where I was; and at last they way-laid the outer doors.

The sort of curses they indulged in meanwhile, I need not describe again.  They were essentially the same as they had hitherto vented, save that one or two of them growing a little humorous, cried out occasionally “a speech from Professor Allen”—­putting a peculiar emphasis on the professor.

The Committee busied themselves in furnishing two sleighs in which I was to be conveyed away, and also in appeasing the more ruffianly part of the multitude with cigars and such other articles as they choose to call for at the bar of the hotel.  One of the sleighs was stationed at the back door of the hotel, and the other about two miles from Fulton.  The plan was that I should get into the former and be driven to the latter, in which I was to be taken post haste to Syracuse—­a distance of about twenty-five miles.  The mob, however, suspected some of the details of the plan, and consequently every time I appeared at the back door, they made a rush at me seeking to wreak their vengeance.  I escaped their violence, however, by stepping adroitly out of the way.  And, as the tavern keeper had assured them that if they attempted violence upon me while I was under his roof, they would do it at their peril, many of them left, and I, at last, succeeded in reaching the sleigh at the back door and was driven off in safety.  The mob unable to overtake me, still shouted a last imprecation.

For this said Sleigh ride, I paid Six dollars, about L1. 4s.; so I was robbed, if not murdered.