as a child every night, and grew stronger. He wrote a great many letters, all of which appear to have been faithfully forwarded. Several of these were to his wife, who just before his execution came to see him, against his advice, and was admitted once, and went away. His letters from his prison were dignified, solemn, and somewhat wordy, as if this terrible situation, and the opportunity to express himself which all this letter-writing afforded, had led him to abandon his customary succinctness of expression. He wrote not one letter to his old abolitionist correspondents and supporters, knowing that to write to them would direct suspicion toward these men. But to Mary Stearns, wife of his chief benefactor, at Medford, he did write a very simple, eloquent letter of farewell.
On the appointed day Brown was taken to the gallows in a wagon, in the presence of a great force of Virginian
