April 18.
Brown left on Thursday the 14th, and was to be at North Elba to-morrow the 19th. Thence he goes “in a few days” to you.1 He says he must not be trifled with, and shall hold Boston and New Haven to their word. New Haven advises him to forfeit five hundred dollars he has paid on a certain contract, and drop it. He will not. From here he went in good spirits, and appeared better than ever to us, barring an affection of the right side of his head. I hope he will meet hearty encouragement elsewhere. Mr. Smith gave him four hundred dollars, I twenty-five, and we took some ten dollars at the little meeting. . . . “L’expérience démontre, avec toute l'evidence possible, que c'est la société que prépare le crime, et que le coupable n'est que l'instrument que l'exécute.” Do you believe Quetelet?
1 He actually reached [Sanborn’s] house in Concord, Saturday, May 7, and spent half his last birthday with me.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 467-8
"Experience shows, with all the evidence possible, that it is the society that prepares the crime, and that the culprit is only the instrument that executes it."
Brown's backers might be a little uneasy about the moral aspects of his plan.