Robert Brown

“ The Planter was soon transmogrified into a rebel man-of-war, to be used in and about the rivers and bays near Charleston, and Robert Small was her acknowledged pilot. One of Robert's brothers was second engineer, and a cousin to him was the second mate; the remainder of the crew were all slaves, except the white officers. It was the custom of the captain, chief mate, and chief engineer to spend the night with their families in the city, when the steamer was in port, the vessel being left in charge of Robert. ”

“ Before leaving Liverpool they had married sisters. Elizabeth Romer, the wife of Robert Brough, was at one time a member of the Haymarket company. Alone or in conjunction with his brother, Robert wrote a series of burlesques, which were played at the Adelphi, Lyceum, Olympic, and other theatres, together with some adaptations from the French. His labours in other branches of literature were incessant. In the first volume of the 'Welcome Guest,' which he edited, appeared his novel 'Miss Brown,' and many short stories, poems, and essays. ”

“ Brown scanned it with his twisted smile: "A thousand dollars! you go to hell!" Brown enrolled in the homeless host, sleeping anywhere, anywhen; Suffered, strove, became a ghost, slave of the lamp for other men; For What's-his-name and So-and-so in the abyss his soul he stripped, Yet in his want, his worst of woe, held he fast to the manuscript. Then one day as he chewed his pen, half in hunger and half despair, Creaked the door of his garret den; Dick, his brother, was standing there. Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail: "Save me, brother! ”

“ Robert was speaking boldly, for in spite of the fear in his heart he was convinced that his own safety, as well as the safety of the precious letter itself, would be best preserved in this manner.
"We 're in no mood to stand any foolishness," said Claudius Brown sharply. "Will you give me that letter?"
"I told you I did n't have any letter. You can search me and see for yourself."
"We can do that fast enough," replied the leader angrily, as he drew a knife from his belt and stepped forward. "Take off his coat!" ”

“ As he once more appeared Claudius Brown seized him by the shoulder, and he was compelled to follow, as all the men withdrew from the presence of the barn where the heat was becoming intense. As they came out into the road Robert could see that there were a half dozen more of the redcoats, and they were bending over some object of interest on the ground in front of the smoking ruins of the tavern.
"The man's alive," said some one, looking up as the officer approached. ”

“ Devotedly attached to his fatherland, he goes for a "Negro Nationality." Whatever he undertakes, he executes it with all the powers that God has given him; and what would appear as an obstacle in the way of other men, would be brushed aside by Martin R. Delany.
ROBERT SMALL.
At the breaking out of the rebellion, Robert Small was a slave in Charleston, S. C. He stood amid a group of his fellow-slaves, as the soldiers were getting ready to make the assault upon Fort Sumter, and he said to his associates, "This, boys, is the dawn of [Pg 176] freedom for our race." ”

“ Why, do you know I fear even the eyes of Brown. When he drives me anywhere, he always looks as if he were memorizing the number of the place. But how contentedly he waited until I came out of the store, and he was nearly asleep upon the box. ”

“ Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, with his stern, starved face, and his lips stone-pale, Shuddered and smiled his twisted smile: "Brother, I guess you go to gaol." While poor Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with God for the sacred fire, Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire; Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing ”

“ When over eighty years old he had a dispute with the parish constable about a rate, blows were struck, and before a magistrate he behaved so stubbornly that he was sent to Northampton gaol, where he died in October 1633. He was buried in St Giles’s churchyard, Northampton. In spite of his later attitude of compromise with expediency, which he felt forced on him by external conditions too strong to defy or ignore, Robert Browne remains a pioneer in ecclesiastical theory in England, the first formulator of an ideal which subsequently became known as Congregationalism (q.v.) ”

“ My dearest Mrs. Martin,—Now I am going to answer your letter, which I all but lost, and got ever so many days beyond the right day, because you directed it to Mrs. William Browning. Pray remember Robert Browning for the future, in right descent from Robert Brunnyng, [178] the first English poet. Mrs. Jameson says, 'It's ominous of the actual Robert's being the last English poet;' a saying which I give you to remember us by, rejecting the omen.... We have grown to be Florentine citizens, as perhaps you have heard. Health and means both forbade our settlement in England ”

“ Setting aside all legal rights in the matter, he divided that portion equally among his brothers and sister. He followed mercantile pursuits, and thereby acquired a very ample fortune. His success was largely due to habits of industry and punctuality which he assiduously observed throughout his career. Mr. Brown was a believer in the Baptist faith, and a careful observer of its forms, although he never made a public profession of that religion. He was liberal with his wealth, and a constant benefactor of the college and other public buildings devoted to religion or science in Providence. ”

“ To the outward eye of men, John Brown was a criminal, but to their inward eye he was a just man and true. His deeds might be disowned, but the spirit which made those deeds possible was worthy highest honor. It has been often asked, why did not Virginia spare the life of this man? why did she not avail herself of this grand opportunity to add to her other glory that of a lofty magnanimity? Had they spared the good old man's life—had they said to him, "You see we have you in our power, and could easily take your life, but we have no desire to hurt you in any way ”

“ We who know the story of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery think of John Brown as a hero. We forget the outlaw and remember the martyr. If he was setting the laws of men at defiance he was also following the law that he felt was given him by God. His faith and his simplicity have made him a great figure in history. A man who met him riding across the plains of Kansas in the days of the border warfare drew a vivid picture of him. He said that a tall man on horseback stopped and asked him a question. ”

“ John Brown was great because he was good, and good because he was great, with the bravery of a warrior and the tenderness of a child, loving liberty as a mother her first born, he scorned to compromise with slavery. Virginia demanded his blood and he gave it, making the spot on which he fell sacred for all time, upon which posterity will see a monument in commemoration of an effort, grand in its magnanimity, to which the devotees of liberty from every clime can repair to breathe anew an inspiration from its shrine ”

“ When Father Brown first stepped off an Atlantic liner on to American soil he discovered, as many another Englishman has done, that he was a much more important person than he had ever supposed. His short figure, his short-sighted and undistinguished countenance, his rather rusty black clerical clothes, could pass through any crowd in his own country without being noticed as anything unusual, except perhaps unusually insignificant. But America has a genius for the encouragement of fame ”

“ A fresh fall of snow had again made all things white and smooth; Rab once more looked on, and slunk home to the stable.
And what of Rab? I asked for him next week at the new carrier who got the good-will of James's business and was now master of Jess and her cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said, rather rudely, "What's YOUR business wi' the dowg?" I was not to be so put off. "Where's Rab?" He, getting confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair, said, '"Deed, sir, Rab's deid." "Dead! what did he die of?" "Weel, sir," said he, getting redder, "he didna exactly dee; he was killed. ”

“ With this deep conviction, then, in our hearts is it not meet that we should keep ever green the memory of the man who more than any other, appreciated the exigencies of the hour, who first fell in his devotion to the cause? In these twenty-five years his spirit has been joined by those of Sumner, Greeley, Garrison, Giddings, Phillips, Foster and the many, many thousands who toiled for the wronged of whatever color. Truth, though for a time crushed to earth, has risen again. Freedom reigns indeed in the land of John Brown. ”

“ Just here was the true glory of John Brown's mission. It was not for his own freedom that he was thus ready to lay down his life, for with Paul he could say, "I was born free." No chain had bound his ankle, no yoke had galled his neck. History has no better illustration of pure, disinterested benevolence. It was not Caucasian for Caucasian—white man for white man; not rich man for rich man, but Caucasian for Ethiopian—white man for black man—rich man for poor man—the man admitted and respected, for the man despised and rejected. ”

“ JOHN BROWN: A PARADOX.
COMPASSIONATE eyes had our brave John Brown,
And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown;
He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley,
The fool who redeemed us once of our folly,
And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown!
Too vehement, verily, was John Brown!
For waiting is statesmanlike; his the renown
Of the holy rash arm, the equipper and starter
Of freedmen; aye, call him fanatic and martyr:
He can carry both halos, our plain John Brown.
A scandalous stumbling-block was John Brown,
And a jeer; but ah! ”

“ Major Brown was a V.C., and an able and distinguished soldier, but he was anything but a warlike person. Like many among the iron men who recovered British India, he was a man with the natural belief and tastes of an old maid. In his dress he was dapper and yet demure; in his habits he was precise to the point of the exact adjustment of a teacup. One enthusiasm he had, which was of the nature of a religion—the cultivation of pansies. ”

“ The eyes of Basil closed as in a trance, after his habit, and the eyes of Rupert and myself getting rounder and rounder as we listened to one of the most astounding stories in the world from the lips of the little man in black, sitting bolt upright in his chair and talking like a telegram.
Major Brown was, I have said, a successful soldier, but by no means an enthusiastic one. So far from regretting his retirement on half-pay, it was with delight that he took a small, neat villa, very like a doll's house, and devoted the rest of his life to pansies and weak tea. ”

“ Brown went with Root as far as Tabor, Iowa, where the supplies were stored, to await further developments.
Leaving Tabor, he passed through Chicago about the first of December. In Ohio, upon presenting his letters from Governor [Pg 185] Robinson to Governor Chase, he received from him an additional letter of commendation, for use in Ohio, and twenty-five dollars in cash. Thus encouraged, he pushed on, stopping at various places on the way, soliciting money, and arriving in Boston about January 1, 1857. ”

“ Of the Boston committee only Stearns stood up and out in the public glare and said unequivocally, then and there: "I believe John Brown to be the representative man of this century, as Washington was of the last—the Harper's Ferry affair, and the capacity shown by the Italians for self-government, the great events of this age. One will free Europe and the other America." [1]
The attitude of the black man toward John Brown is typified by Frederick Douglass and Shields Green. ”

“ You do not understand Brown's circumstances.... He is as ready for a revolution as any other man, and is now on the borders of Kansas, safe from arrest, but prepared for action, but he needs money for his present expenses and active support. I believe he is the best Disunion champion you can find, and with his hundred men, when he is put where he can raise them, and drill them (for he has an expert drill officer with him) he will do more to split the Union than a list of 50,000 names, for your convention, good as that is. ”

“ Young John Brown's first broad contact with life and affairs came with the War of 1812, during which Hull's disastrous campaign brought the scene of fighting near his western home. His father, a simple wandering old soul, thrifty without foresight, became a beef contractor, and the boy drove his herds of cattle and hung about the camp. He met men of position, was praised for his prowess and let listen to talk that seemed far beyond his years. ”

“ Such men as he needed are not to be found ordinarily; they must be reared. John Brown did not merely look for men, therefore; he reared them in his sons. Mrs. Brown had been always the sharer of his plans. 'Her husband always believed,' she said, 'that he was to be an instrument in the hands of Providence, and she believed it too.' 'This plan had occupied his thoughts and prayers for twenty years.' 'Many a night he had lain awake and prayed concerning it.'" "He believed in human brotherhood, and in the God of Battles ”

“ Two hundred African monkey muffs would really be a great many."
"Mr. Brown," said Robinson on that occasion;—and it may be doubted whether he ever again spoke to the senior partner of his firm in terms so imperious and decisive; "Mr. Brown, to you has been allotted your share in our work, and when you insisted on throwing away our ready money on those cheap Manchester prints, I never said a word. It lay in your department to do so. ”

“ There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for one of John Brown.... Those who thought best of him, and those who thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought him to Harper's Ferry. ”