“I wish now simply to show the public, that those who made the onslaught upon me on Sabbath evening, a week ago, acted no less like a pack of fools than a pack of devils; and this can be shown almost in a single word, by stating that the whole story of my intention of being married on the evening in question, or that I went to Fulton intending to consummate an affair of the kind at any period of my recent visit there, is a fabrication from the beginning to the end.  The wretch who ’fixed up’ just such a story as he thought would inflame the rabble to take my life, will yet, I trust, meet with deserved scorn and contempt from a community who, whatever may be their prejudice against my color, have, nevertheless, a high sense of what belongs to their own honor and dignity, and to the character and reputation of their village.

“I make this statement with regard to this matter of marriage, not because I regard myself as amenable to the public to state to them whom or when I shall marry, but that since so much has been said upon the subject, I am quite willing they should know the truth as it is.  They are tyrants, and very little-hearted, and exceedingly muddy-headed ones at that, who will presume to take a matter of this kind out of the hands of the parties to whom it specifically belongs, and who are acting law-abidingly and honorably in the premises.

“Here then is the story.  Read it.  A band of several hundred armed men—­armed, as I have been told, with an empty barrel spiked with shingle nails, tar, feathers and a pole, came down upon a certain house in Phillipsville, opposite Fulton, on Sabbath evening, a week ago, to kill or drive out a single individual, conducting himself in a quiet, peaceable manner, and that individual, too, in physical stature, one of the smallest of men,—­and in physical strength, proportionably inferior!  If this is not cowardice as well as villainy—­and both of them double-refined—­then, I ask, what is cowardice, or what is villainy?  The malignity of the whole matter also is set in a clearer light, when it is remembered that this same individual has never injured one of his assailants, nor has it been charged upon him that in his life-time he has ever inflicted the slightest wrong upon mortal man, but who has striven to maintain an upright character through life, and to fight his way for long years through scorn and contempt, to an honorable position among men.  Truly, this is a precious country!  However, it is some consolation to know that ’God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep for ever.’

“A gentleman of Fulton writes an article on this subject, to the ‘Oswego Daily Times,’ of February the 3rd.  The spirit of this gentleman’s article dishonors his heart.  So filled is he with a prejudice which an eminent Christian of this country has rightly characterized, as a ‘blasphemy against God,’ and a ’quarrel with Jehovah,’ that he will not even deign to call me by name, to