or persons connected with the robbery, provided that assurance proved necessary in order to get possession of the money.  All this being satisfactorily accomplished, he went to Albany and brought back the sum said to have been deposited there.  Ten or fourteen hundred dollars were still wanting to complete the amount, which Mr. Darg said he had lost; but they had hopes of obtaining that also, by confronting various individuals, who had become involved with this complicated affair.  Meanwhile, Barney Corse and James S. Gibbons called upon Mr. Darg to inform him of the amount recovered and safely deposited in the bank, and to pay him the sum brought from Albany.  Instead of giving the deed of manumission, which had been his own voluntary offer at the outset, and which he knew had been the impelling motive to exertion, Mr. Darg had two police-officers in an adjoining room to arrest Barney Corse for having stolen money in his possession.  He was of course astonished at such an ungrateful return for his services, but at once expressed his readiness to go before any magistrate that might be named.

It would not be easy to give an adequate idea of the storm of persecution that followed.  Popular prejudice against abolitionists was then raging with uncommon fury; and police-officers and editors availed themselves of it to the utmost to excite hostility against individuals, who had been actuated by a kind motive, and who had proceeded with perfect openness throughout the whole affair.  The newspapers of the city were pro-slavery, almost without exception.  The idea of sending abolitionists to the State Prison was a glorious prospect, over which they exulted mightily.  They represented that Thomas had been enticed from his master by these pretended philanthropists, who had advised him to steal the money, as a cunning mode of obtaining manumission.  As for the accused, all they asked was a speedy and thorough investigation of their conduct.  The case was however postponed from week to week, and offers were made meanwhile to compromise the matter, if Barney Corse would pay the balance of the lost money.  He had wealthy connexions, and perhaps the prosecutors hoped to extort money from them, to avoid the disgrace of a trial.  But Barney Corse was far from wishing to avoid a trial.

At this juncture of affairs, Friend Hopper took a step, which raised a great clamor among his enemies, and puzzled some of his friends at the time, because they did not understand his motives.  He sued Mr. Darg for the promised reward of one thousand dollars.  He had several reasons for this proceeding.  In the first place, the newspapers continually pointed him out as a man over whose head a criminal prosecution was pending; while he had at the same time had good reason to believe that his accusers would never venture to meet him before a court of justice; and a proper regard for his own character made him resolved to obtain a legal investigation of his conduct by some process.