The government now would not dare! What interested her more was the story at that time made current, of an unsuccessful attempt which had been made by a southern slave owner to reclaim his property in a northern state.

The facts recounted that a planter of Maryland, with two relatives, had followed an escaped slave to the settlement of Christianville, Pennsylvania, where a little colony of fugitives had made common cause together.

In this case, as was prescribed under the law, the slave owner had called to his aid a United States marshal, who in turn had summoned a large posse of his own.

These had visited the home of the fugitive and called upon him to surrender himself to his owner.

This the fugitive had refused to do, and he was backed in this refusal by a considerable party of men of his own race, some of them free men, and some fugitive slaves, who had assembled at his house.
"I'll have my property," asserted the slave owner, according to the report, "or I'll eat my breakfast in hell." One of the Marylanders had then fired upon the slave, and the fire was returned in general by the negroes.