Let them give her time, and treat with forbearance
her hesitation, qualms of conscience, and wounded pride. Her people,
indeed, are awkward in the work of slave-catching, and, it would seem,
rendered but indifferent service in a late hunt in Boston. Whether they
would do better under the surveillance of the army and navy of the United
States is a question which we leave with the President and his Secretary
of State. General Putnam once undertook to drill a company of Quakers,
and instruct them, by force of arms, in the art and mystery of fighting;
but not a single pair of drab-colored breeches moved at his "forward
march;" not a broad beaver wheeled at his word of command; no hand
unclosed to receive a proffered musket. Patriotic appeal, hard swearing,
and prick of bayonet had no effect upon these impracticable raw recruits;
and the stout general gave them up in despair. We are inclined to
believe that any attempt on the part of the Commander-in-chief of our
army and navy to convert the good people of Massachusetts into expert
slave-catchers, under the discipline of West Point and Norfolk, would
prove as idle an experiment as that of General Putnam upon the Quakers.
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