Anti Slavery Bugle

From the Pa. Freeman.

Daring Outrage!---Burglary and Kidnapping!

The following letter tells its own startling and most painful story. Every manly and generous heart must burn with indignation at the villainy it describes, and bleed with sympathy for the almost heart-broken sufferers.

Downingtown, 19th 4mo., 1848.

My Dear Friend—This morning our family was aroused by the screams of a young colored girl, who has been living with us nearly a year past—but we were awakened only in time to see her borne off by three white men, ruffians indeed, to a carriage at our door, and in an instant she was on her way to the South. I feel so much excited by the attendant circumstances of this daring and atrocious deed, as scarcely to be able to give a coherent account of it, but I know that it is a duty to make it known, and I therefore write this immediately.

As soon as the house was opened in the morning, these men who were lurking without, having a carriage in waiting in the street, entered on their horrid errand. They encountered no one in their entrance, except a colored boy who was making a fire; and who being frightened at their approach ran and hid himself; taking a lighted candle from the kitchen, and carrying it up stairs, they went directly to the chamber in which the poor girl lay in a sound sleep. They lifted her from her bed and carried her down stairs. In the entry of the second floor they met one of my sisters, who hearing an unusual noise, had sprang from her bed. Her screams, and those of the poor girl, who was now thoroughly awakened to the dreadful truth, aroused my father, who hurried undressed from his chamber on the ground floor. My father's efforts were powerless against the three; they threw him off and with frightful imprecations hurried the girl to the carriage. Quickly as possible my father started in pursuit, and reached West Chester, only to learn that the carriage had driven through the borough at full speed about half an hour before. They had two horses to their vehicle, and there were three men besides those in the house. These particulars we gather from the colored boy Ned, who, from his hiding place, was watching them in the road.

Can anything be done for the rescue of this girl from her kidnappers? We are surprised and alarmed; this deliberate invasion of our house is a thing unimagined. There must be some informer, who is acquainted with our house and its arrangements, or they would never have come so boldly through. Truly there is no need to preach about slavery in the abstract; this individual case combines every wickedness by which human nature can be degraded.

Truly thy friend,

MARY B. THOMAS.

In a subsequent letter our friend says: "As to detail, the whole transaction was like a flash, to those who saw the miserable ending. I was impelled to write without delay by the thought that it would be in time for the Freeman,' and that any procrastination on my part might jeopard others of these suffering people, who are living as was this poor girl, in fancied security. Our consternation was inexpressible—our sorrow and indignation deepen daily, as the thought returns of the awful announcement with which we were wakened; 'They have carried Martha to the South.'—'To do what will be of most service to the cause—not their cause—ours—that of our race, is our burning desire."

The Downingtown Outrage.—This dreadful act described so vividly by our friend who was witness to it, is one of the boldest and most alarming assaults ever made upon personal liberty and security in our State, many and monstrous as they have been. Have we no safety and no means of protection from lawless kidnappers, in this nominally free State? Talk about security to person and liberty under our Constitutions and laws! The words are a mockery! They but tantalize and torture the hearer, with the vision of peace, and rights, and enjoyments never possessed. Tell us of our superiority to the feudal vassals who were our ancestors! Wherein does it consist, if we have no defence from the invasion of our homes, and the plunder of our households by ruthless ruffians; if innocent children may be dragged from their beds at night, by armed burglars, and carried off into slavery with impunity? Who among us is safe, when in the midst of a thickly settled village, miles away from the slave border, such deeds can be done? It may well cause the most prompt and vigorous measures to be taken for our own protection, and to prevent the incursions of kidnappers upon us. Who will ask now, what have we to do with slavery? Not the people of Downingtown or of Chester County surely; nor Northern men who hear the tale of this atrocity, if they have hearts of humanity, or wisely value their own and their children's liberties. We are informed that one of the kidnappers was recognized as a notorious slave-hunter from Maryland. We may also state that friends from this city followed them to Baltimore, where they learned that the poor girl had been imprisoned, but previous to their arrival had been carried to Virginia. Means are in train to recover her if possible.