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APRIL, 1861.   DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.   447
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OUTRAGEOUS CASES OF KIDNAPPING.

On Saturday, March 2d, an attempt was made in the city of New York to carry a colored man into slavery. The Tribune gives the following particulars of the affair:

John Bell with his wife and child, left their good master, Wm. Crawford a tobacco merchant in Greenbrier County, Va, between six and seven weeks ago, and all traveled afoot until they reached this city, on Wednesday last. Here he went about asking for assistance to 'get on.' Among other places he went into a store up town, where one of the clerks, after hearing his story, said he would take him to friends who would help him get to Canada. Bell went with the clerk to a place, a description of which would very well answer for the U. S. Marshal's Office. Here parties were very friendly toward him, and finally induced him to go to the Northern Hotel, corner of Courtlandt and West streets. It was then a little after noon of Thursday, and he sat down at the hotel to what he deemed a princely dinner, with fine liquor accompaniments.

In the course of the afternoon he assisted in putting some boards and timber up from the back yard, through a window. Afterward, one of the men who had accompanied him to the hotel--a large, stout man, with a mustache--now proposed to hire him at $20 a month, to take care fo four children, and do other work about the house. He said, 'You boys down South can generally fiddle and sing; can you fiddle some?' 'I can play two or three tunes,' was the reply. The big man said he would go and get a fiddle. He soon returned, and told John they had better go up stairs where nobody would be disturbed. The negro, accompanied by three persons, went up several stories, and finally stopped in an apartment, where, instead of the fiddle, were produced a pair of handcuffs, which the men applied to their victim, although they used no violence, and pretended to be his friends. During the night two Irishmen watched him--the porter Joe at first, until relieved by another servant named Dennis. 

On Saturday afternoon the handcuffs were taken off, and one of his good friends said he was to go with them to Albany. They had made some changes in his apparel, putting on a glazed cap and different pants. A little before 3 p. m. his three friends got him into a close carriage, and accompanied him to Pier No. 13, the wharf of the steamer Yorktown, for Norfolk, telling him on the way not to attempt to look out. They arrived at their destination just about the time the Yorktown was to leave. John's suspicions, however, had been for some time aroused, and after the party had alighted and had reached the end of the gang plank, and an attempt was made to force him aboard, he caught hold of the gang plank, and with so strong a grasp that the kidnappers could not unloose him. Then he commenced to halloa, and said that they wanted to take him South and sell him, with other exclamations, which attracted the attention of bystanders, among whom was Officer Armstrong of the steamboat squad. The officer ran at once to the scene, and asked the parties if they had any papers to warrant their taking away that man. Ex Councilman Cornelius W. Campbell said they had not, but that Lorenzo de Angelis, a deputy in the Marshal's office, had the papers.

The kidnappers, finding that they were discovered, took themselves off very quickly. Indeed, they disappeared before the negro got away, though he evinced a disposition to leave the scene as soon as possible. He went off at a back or side gangway, seeming very much bewildered, and frightened half to death. The negroes about the dock shoved him along, however, and he got upon a dray, and was driven off. About ten minutes afterward, a large, stout man, with a mustache, appeared on the wharf and asked Officer Armstrong if he had that nigger, and added that if he had been there no g-d d-d crowd could have got the nigger away. The officer asked if he had the papers. The big man said, not; but that they
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would be there, though not before the boat left. 

The ex-Councilman, Cor. W. Campbell, above referred to, we believe is one of the keepers of the Sons of Malta saloon, Heenan's headquarters, No. 839 Broadway. To what extent Marshal Runders is implicated in this business, does not appear.

The immediate actors should at once be arrested. Even with a warrant, they would not have had the right to force the man on board a vessel until he had had a hearing before a United States Commissioner. But they were acting without any warrant, none of the United States Commissioners having issued any, and no affidavit was made upon which a warrant could be issued. A few months ago a colored man named John Thomas was taken to Richmond by two Marshal's officers in this way, without any warrant or hearing of the case before a United States Commissioner.

MARSHALS OUTWITTED IN PHILADELPHIA.

The Philadelphia Press of March 6th gives the following account of an unsuccessful attempt to catch a runaway slave:

On Monday evening, citizens in the vicinity of Third and South streets were alarmed by hearing loud noises in the yard at the rear of their dwellings. They discovered two men scaling fences and otherwise demeaning themselves in a very erratic and inexplicable manner. A gentleman of that district, who had been thus awakened from a sound sleep into visions of burglary and murder, seized a musket and drew sight upon the intruders. The latter called out that they were not thieves, but United States Marshals on the tract of certain English housebreakers. The musketeer thereupon descended to the yard, and was made acquainted with the following facts:

A confidential female servant in the family of a gentleman of Washington, D. C., recently escaped from her owners, and was received into the family of a certain high constable in this city. The woman was said to be nearly white, of some personal attractiveness, and intelligent beyond her race. She dwelt with the high constable as aforesaid until Monday, at noon, when a neighbor, cognizant that she had been a slave, appeared at the house to warn her that the Marshals were upon her track. She was forthwith removed to Third and South streets, and afterwards to a remote part of the State. The Marshals had assumed the recapture of this woman as the crowning exploit of their term of administration. Having traced her to Third and South streets, they imagined no difficulty in the labor of the night, but extraordinary vigilance upon the part of the slave frustrated any attempt upon her freedom.

ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP

From Port au Prince, Hayti, comes the following statement:

The courts have a curious case on the docket. A few days since, a vessel sailing under the American flag--but, to American honor be it said, commanded by a Frenchman and manned by a crew of Spanish and Italian sailors--came into this harbor with a clearance from a South American port, but really from New Orleans. The Captain said that he wished to employ some sixty or eighty laborers to work a guano bakn on one of the gulf islands, and as he offered very liberal wages, he soon succeeded in securing the desired number of men, and was nearly ready to sail, when the conscience of one of the crew smote him to such a degree that he divulged the nefarious scheme of his captain, which was to take his poor deluded victims into some one of the many Cuban ports, and there dispose of them to the planters as slaves. This, of course, caused the captain's arrest, and he was taken and placed in a prison. He will have a hearing before the courts.

KIDNAPPING IN SOUTHERN KANSAS.

A correspondent of the Leavenworth Conservvitive, writing from Mound City, Feb. 14, says:

On Monday night last, a company of Missourians--some ten in number--surrounded
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the house of Samuel B. McGrow, who resided some five miles west of this place, and carried away a negro who had been working there for the last three months. The negro came into this neighborhood about three months ago, and has since lived at the house of Mr. McGrow. He has always been regarded as a free negro. He carried with him his free papers, made and executed by one Quisinburg, and properly attested by the clerk of the county of Crawford, in the State of Arkansas. The ten Missourians who committed this act, were a part of the body of Missouri soldiers--so called--who are now stationed near Fail's store some fifteen miles from this place. There are about one hundred men stationed at that point, ostensibly to guard the frontier of Missouri, some of whom are daily crossing the line, and prowling around through this and Bourbon county, committing various outrages of a minor character, endeavoring thereby to incite our people to invade Missouri. 
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BRITISH VESSELS IN THE PORT OF CHARLESTON.--In the British House of Commons, Feb. 22, Mr. W. E. Foster asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he had any objection to lay upon the table of the House a copy of the recent correspondence between her Majesty's Minister at Washington and the United States Secretary for Foreign Affairs, relative to the clearance of British vessels at the port of Charleston, South Carolina. He observed that at the port in question the Federal officers of the States had been superseded, and that that information had been given to the British Consul by gentlemen professing to act on behalf of the Convention of South Carolina. The House would observe that such a notification placed the owners and captains of British vessels in considerable difficulty, inasmuch as the laws of the United States imposed stringent penalties for the non-observance of its revenue regulations, and he was, therefore, anxious to know whether her Majesty's Minister at Washington had been instructed to ask the United States Government whether they would hold responsible those British shspmasters who, under pressure of necessity, complied with the order of the Carolina Convention, and whether, on the other hand, they would indemnify them from any consequences that might result from the non-compliance with its regulations? The British trade with Charleston and the other Southern ports of the Union was vast and important, and he felt sure the noble lord would wish to keep all interested in the trade informed as to their actual position. He would not go into the general question whether diplomacy with the United States would be as unwise as it would be impracticable. He should regret if her Majesty's Government interfered in any way in the lamentable quarrel which had arisen between their friends and cousins on the other side of the Atlantic. He believed that any interference would be as impolitic as it would be unjustifiable, but they still could not forget these two facts--first, that the quarrel had arisen out of Slavery; and, secondly, that they had with the United States a treaty for the prevention of the slave trade, the relinquishment of which, he believed, would be as injurious to their interests as destructive to their honor and the cause of humanity. (Hear hear.)

Lord John Russell, in reply, said--With regard to the correspondence which the honorable member for Bradford wishes to obtain, I have to state that I shall be most willing to give it, and it will be presented on Monday next, and I may further say that that correspondence is highly honorable to our consul at Charleston. He was placed in a position of great difficulty, not being able to acknowledge the new Government which sprung up, but at the same time he did not neglect the interests of British shipping. (Hear hear.)
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--Hon. Joshua R. Giddings has been appointed Consul-General of British America, by President Lincoln.