FROM OUR NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT.

MR. EDITOR—I thought I would not trouble you again until the 'heated term' had thoroughly passed away. September was hotter than August, and the early half of October presented us with downright summer weather. But now it is decidedly cool, and one may venture a word without fear of the [illegible]

To be sure there are other matters in the wind just now—heroes and here dread—for
heroes are to be worshipped afar off—

The fiery furnace in which they are tried, is actual heat, and burning to those of more mortal-mould. It is here dread to-day—hero-worship by and bye. Our friends the Virginians dreaded Capt. Brown and his hero band, and these 'ten men persued a thousand.' Gov. Wise feared Capt. Brown, and would not come near him until he had a few hundred militia at his back, and United States troops in front of him. President Buchanan feared a possible Capt. Brown, and had Washington placed in a state of surveillance and defence. The Virginia militia feared Capt. Brown, and dared not assault him in the engine house. The Republican party fears Capt. Brown, and is in that hysterical state between convulsions and forced laughter, which [betokens?] the keenest [illegible] agony.—Our Abolition friends, they dread Captain Brown, and deny him, or cold shoulder him; the old here is too near by us to be worshipped, so let us dread him. Probably Old Knoll had few worshippers while at a . Their glowing incandescence is quite an uncomfortable atmosphere for men not fired with like noble rage.

And yet there are deep cords within us which thrill and years towards the old here! So brave and yet so gentle! Such iron nerves surrounding such tender heart! What man nor of men is this who suffers his own sons to be shot down by his side without a murmur, and spares the lives of his captives out of regard to their wives and children? But I am

rising up to hero-worship: let us slide back into hero-dread.

The most marked instance of hero-dread inspired by Capt. Brown, is found in the charge of the Hon. Richard Parker, Circuit Judge, to the Grand Jury of Jefferson Co, Va. It is worthy of careful perusal.

CHARLESTOWN, Jefferson County, Va, October 21, 1859—The Circuit Court of Jefferson county—Hon. Richard Parker, Circuit Judge—which commenced his session yesterday, was occupied to-day with the trial of the case of State agt. Dillard, the an assault with intent to kill. The examination trial of the Insurrectionists, Brown and his associates, before eight Justices of the Peace, will take place on Tuesday, in the court room, the Circuit Court adjourning for that purpose—Judge Parker's charge to the Grand Jury referred mainly to the late attempts to excite insurrection. He said:

Gentlemen of the Jury: In the state of excitement into which our whole community] has been thrown by the recent occurrences in this county, I feel that the charge which I usually deliver to a Grand Jury would be entirely out of place. Those occurrences cannot but force themselves upon your attention. They must neccesarily occupy a considerable portion of that time which you will devote to your public duties as a Grant Jury. However guilty the unfortunate men who are now in the hands of justice may prove to be, still they cannot be called upon to answer to the offended laws of our commonwealth for any of the multifarious crimes with which they are charged, until the Grand Jury, after diligent inquiry, shall decide that for these offences they be put upon their trial. I will not permit myself to give expression to any of those feelings which at once spring up in every breast when reflection upon the enormity of the guilt in which those are involved who invade by force a peaceful unsuspecting portion of our common country, raise the standard of insurrection amongst them, and shoot down without mercy Virginia citizens, defending Virginia soil against their invasion. I must remember, gentlemen, that as a minister of justice, bound to execute over you and laws faithfully, and in the very spirit of Justice herself, I must, as to every one accused of crime, hold, as the law holds, that he is innocent until he shall be proved guilty by honest, independent and an impartial jury of his countrymen; and what is obligatory upon me is equally binding upon every one who may be connected with the prosecution and trials of these offenders. In these cases, as in all others, you will be controlled by that oath which each of you has taken, and in

which you have solemnly sworn that you will diligently inquire into all offences which may be brought to your knowledge, and that you will present no one through ill-will, as well as that you will leave no one unindicted through fear or favor; but in all your presentments you shall present the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Do but this, gentlemen, and you will have but fulfilled your duty. Go beyond this, and in place of that diligent inquiry and calm investigation which you have sworn to make, act upon prejudice or from excitement of passion, and you will have done a wrong to that law in whose services you are engaged. As I before said, those men are now in the hands of justice. They are to have a fair and impartial trial. We owe it to the cause of justice as well as to our own characters, that such a trial should be afforded them. If guilty, they will be sure to pay the extreme penalty of their guilt, and the example of punishment, when thus inflicted by virtue of law, will be, beyond all comparison, more efficacious for our protection than any torture to which mere passion could subject them. Whether they be in public or private position, let each one of us remember that as the law has charge of these alleged offenders, the law alone, through its recognized agents, must deal with them to the last. It can tolerate no interference by others with duties it has assumed to itself. If true to herself, and she will be, our commonwealth, through her courts of justice, will be as ready to punish the offence of such interference as she is to punish these grave and serious offences with which she is now about to deal, in case these offences be proved by legal testimony to have been perpetrated. Let us all, gentlemen, bear this in mind, and in patience await the result, confident that that result will be whatever strict and impartial justice shall determine to be necessary and proper. It would seem, gentlemen, and yet I speak from no evidence, but upon vague rumors which have reached me, that these men who have lately thrown themselves upon us, confidently expected to be joined by our slaves and free negroes, and unfurled the banner of insurrection and invited this class of our citizens to rally under it, and yet, as I am told, they were unable to obtain a single circuit.

The following is the commitment of the insurrectionists, and the warrant to the sheriff to summon eight justices to examine the facts with which they stand charged:

, Jefferson County, to wit:—To the sheriff, Court, and to the keeper of the jail of said county: These are to command you, in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia, forthwith to convey and deliver into the custody of the keeper of said jail, and to

receive and safely keep the bodies of John Brown, Aaron O. Stephens, Edwin Coppie, Shields Green and John Copland, negro, and charged before me, Roger Chew, a Justice of the Peace for said county, on the oaths of Henry A. Wise, Andrew Hunter and John W. McGinnis, and upon the free admission and confession of said parties made in my presence and hearing, that they and each of them did feloniously conspire with each other and with other parties unknown, to make an abolition insurrection and open war against the Commonwealth of Virginia. by making an armed attack upon and murdering her citizens at a certain place called Harper's Ferry, and then and there to riot on the 17th. 18th and 19th days of October, 1859, and did feloniously and of their malice kill and murder, with firearms called Sharpe's rifles, and revolvers, and pistols, divers citizens of this commonwealth, and Fontaine Beckham, George W. Turner and Thomas Boerly, free white persons, and Luke Quinn, a soldier of the United States Government, and also Hayward Sheppard, a free negro, and did there and then, feloniously conspire with divers slaves, belonging to citizens of this Commonwealth, in the county aforesaid, to me unknown, to rebel and make insurrection against the government and laws of this Commonwealth, that they may be examined for the said offence before the proper examining court, and otherwise dealt with according to law.

Given under my hand and seal this 20th day of October, 1859. Signed. Roger Chew

To the Sheriff of Jefferson County, Virginia:—Whereas John Brown, Aaron O. Stephens and Edwin Coppie, white persons, and Shields Green and John Copland, men of color, have been committed by my warrant within and for certain felonies charged to have been committed as therein stated by them, and being of opinion that there is sufficient cause for charging said parties with said offences, I command you, in the names of the commonwealth, to summon at least eight of the justices of said county to meet at the Court House of said county, on the 25th day of this month, October, 1859, to hold a Court for the examination of the facts with which said parties stand charged, and for such other purposes concerning the premises as are required by law, and have then there this warrant and make return how you have effected the same.

Given under my hand and seal this 20th day of October, 1859. Roger Chew.

Read again the last sentence of the Judge's charge: "It would seem, gentlemen, and yet I

speak from no evidence, but upon vague rumors which have reached me, that these men who have lately thrown themselves upon us, confidently expected to be joined by , and unfurled the banner of insurrection and invited this class of our citizens to rally under it," &c. &c. How powerful is this, when it [illegible] to tell the truth: Under the [illegible] Well done, John Brown! Well done, seventeen white men and five black men! Yes five black men! there is something in this [illegible]: for white Smith O'Brien was arrested in Ireland, under similar circumstances not as Irishmen was found in his company.

Yours, COMMUNIPAWSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. .

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 1859