The Natick Resolution; or, Resistance to Slaveholders/Letter to Capt. Avis
A copy of the letter to Brown, with the resolution passed at Natick, November 20th, 1859, was also sent to Capt. Avis, keeper of the jail in which Brown was confined, awaiting execution, with the following note:—
Captain Avis:
Sir,—Pardon this intrusion by an utter stranger. God bless you for your kindness to John Brown in these, his last hours!
If consistent with your feelings as a man, and your duties as a jailor, you would oblige me by presenting the enclosed to him for his perusal. It is a resolution adopted by the citizens of Natick, Mass., as expressive of their views on a subject now assuming paramount importance throughout the North. Though the sentiments of the resolution and of the accompanying letter may be repugnant to you, it can do no harm to allow your prisoner to read them, that he may stand on the scaffold knowing that he is fully understood and appreciated by those who have known and sympathized with his plans and movements the past few years, and that, through his death, he will serve the cause he so much loves more effectually, it may be, than he could have done by his life.
God bless the single-hearted, grand and kingly man! He seems to us as one clothed with light and majesty as with a garment. Could he but be spared, there are thousands who would cheerfully take his place, and welcome the gallows in his stead. But he must die, as to corporeal existance, and in his death will consist his greatest triumph.
Thine,