Two of my captors stood on each side of me;
while the rest of the court was densely packed with people, who greeted
me with obvious hostility.
When silence was procured, the President said to me, with a show of
great courtesy, that he could not disguise from himself that the charge
against me was a serious one; but that justice would be done to me,
fully and carefully. I should have ample opportunity to excuse myself.
He then called upon one of those who sat with him to state the case
briefly, and call witnesses and after that he promised I might speak for
myself.
A man rose from one of the seats, and, pleading somewhat rhetorically,
said that the object of the great community, to which so many were proud
to belong, was to secure to all the utmost amount of innocent
enjoyment, and the most entire peace of mind; that no pressure was put
upon any one who decided to stay there, and to observe the quiet customs
of the place; but that it was always considered a heinous and
ill-disposed thing to attempt to unsettle any one's convictions, or to
attempt, by using undue influence, to bring about the migration of any
citizen to conditions of which little was known, but which there was
reason to believe were distinctly undesirable.
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