H. Clay Pate, leader of a
"Law and Order" company of militia, went to hunt John Brown and put
him to death as he would go to hunt a wild beast. An African lion
hunter, when questioned, "Is it not fine sport to hunt lions?"
replied, "Yes, it is fine sport to hunt lions, but if the lion hunts
you it is not so fine." H. Clay Pate went to hunt the lion, and found
the lion was hunting him. John Brown attacked Pate with an inferior
force, dispersed his command, and took him prisoner, together with
twenty-eight of his men, and kept them in an inaccessible fastness
which he made his hiding place. A number of Pro-slavery men fled from
the Territory, telling everywhere a blood-curdling story of hard and
cruel treatment. The people of the State of Missouri were filled with
rage and horror, and its presses groaned with frantic appeals to the
people to rise in their might and avenge the blood of their murdered
brethren. Hitherto they had witnessed with perfect composure the
savage butchery of the Free State men, and the outrage of Free State
families; but now the case was bravely altered.
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