[WITHROW] THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY 59 
On witnessing the ecstasies of the negroes on reaching the land 
of liberty, some of them to meet long lost kinsfolk or friends, Fair- 
field exclaimed: “ This pays me for all dangers I have faced in bring- 
ing this company, just to see these friends meet.” 
He was once pursued to Pittsburg by a special train, but the 
fugitives under his convoy made a dash from the cars, scattered 
through the city and were so well concealed that not one could be 
caught, and Fairfield, their gallant conductor, conveyed them all to 
Canada. After many bold exploits he mysteriously disappeared. 
“ Levi Coffin,” says “Ascot Hope,” “is inclined to identify him with 
an, unknown white man killed in stirring up an insurrection among 
slaves, shortly before the war. A slight chance of fortune might have 
made his name ring through the world as loudly as that of John 
Brown.” 
One of the boldest exploits of John Brown was his escorting, in 
1858, a band of twelve slaves from Missouri by a devious route of 
well nigh 1,000 miles to Windsor, in Canada, in mid-winter, in spite 
of a reward of $3,000 for his arrest. This raid excited great alarm 
in Missouri. Many slaves, as a consequence, were sold south and 
others escaped. John Brown’s policy, he himself avowed, was to 
destroy the money value of slave property by rendering it insecure. 
Captain Jonathan Walker, for the crime of attempting to convey 
seven slaves from Pensacola to the Bahamas, was branded on the 
hand with the letters “S. S.”, slave stealer, amerced in a heavy fine 
and languished for nearly four years in a southern prison. Whittier’s 
stirring poem immortalizes his heroism: 
“Why, that brand is highest honour ! — than its ‘traces never yet 
Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set ; 
And thy unborn generations, as they tread our rocky strand, 
Shall tell with pride the story of their father’s branded hand ! 
“Then lift that manly right-hand, bold ploughman of the wave! 
Its branded palm shall prophesy, ‘Salvation to the slave!’ 
Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel 
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.” 
A bold attempt was made by Captain Drayton, of the schooner 
Pearl, to convey seventy-six slaves at one time from the city of Wash- 
ington.* By an irony of fate their dash for liberty was made during 
a great torchlight procession in honour of the establishment of the 
Republic in France. They were pursued and brought back. Three 
persons were prosecuted, the amount of their bail being fixed at 

* Outgoing vessels were sometimes smoked, as is done to get rid of rats, 
to make sure that no stowaways were on board. 
