"
A public meeting was called that night to consider my case, but I did
not know it. The steamboat was expected about noon the next day. I had
been sitting writing letters at the head of the stairs, in the chamber
of the boarding-house where I had slept, and heard some one call my
name, and rose up to go down stairs; but was met by six men, bristling
with revolvers and bowie-knives, who came up stairs and into my room.
The leader was Robert S. Kelley. They presented me a string of
resolutions, denouncing free State men in unmeasured terms, and demanded
that I should sign them. I felt my heart flutter, and knew if I should
undertake to speak my voice would tremble, and determined to gain time.
Sitting down I pretended to read the resolutions--they were familiar to
me, having been already printed in the _Squatter Sovereign_--and finally
I began to read them aloud. But these men were impatient, and said: "We
just want to know will you sign these resolutions?" I had taken my seat
by a window, and looking out and down into the street, had seen a great
crowd assembled, and determined to get among them.
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