I’ve often remarked that you can find anything in the Internet Archive as long as you’re not looking for it. A handwritten letter from Lucia Weston, a notable Boston abolitionist, tells the story of a fugitive slave who was caught stowing away on a New England vessel, and then released on a writ of habeas corpus, with the captain of the vessel apparently under threat of severe consequences for having falsely imprisoned the man. The letter shows how much anti-slavery feeling there already was in Massachusetts by 1836. In particular, it’s striking how the sailors rebelled against their own captain’s treatment of their unexpected passenger.
Boston Oct 4th 1836
…Dr. Farnsworth was here this morning, and he said that there is another Slave-case, he says that a coloured man got on board one of the vessels that were there one of our vessels, he went on board and hid himself under the wood, he filled his pockets full of bread and cheese and he let no one know he was there and they had got to Cape Cod before any one knew he was there then the Captain a New-England man took him and chained his armes behind him, but the sailors could not stand that so they chained him with his hand’s before: and they came into Boston and the coloured people smelt him out, but the Captain had put him in prison on pretence of his payment of 25 dollars for his passage, so Samuel S Sewall went and served out a writ of Heabus Corpus and took the man, and he has him, and the Captain has got to take it for putting the man in prison, and his passage is only worth five or six dollars! Isn’t this good!