knew that Mr. Stearns preferred that he should carry out his own plans without consulting and involving him. Perhaps he did not care what any one thought about it. He communicated his plans gradually to his best trusted "young men." Edwin Coppoc said at Harper's Ferry, "The whole company was opposed to making the first demonstration at Harper's Ferry; but Captain Brown would have his way, and we had to obey orders." Everything seemed going well. Brown intended to strike in April or May, 1868. He went East, visited Frederick Douglass in February, 1868, and sketched quite fully the Virginia plot to him. He had to beg more money from his Massachusetts supporters. He did not disclose his plans to them at this time, only saying that "railroad business," by which, of course, he meant liberating slaves, "on a somewhat extended scale," was his object. Meantime his enemies supposed that he was hiding in Kansas.
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