These were the scenes of the first act, in a drama then commenced; and
those of the next were not unlike. A second Governor (Shannon) having
been procured,--a Governor chosen with a double fitness to the use,--on
the ground of his sympathy with whatever was vulgar in border-ruffian
habits and with whatever was obsequious in Presidential policy,--the
deliberate game of forcing the settlers to submit to the infamous
usurpation of the Missourians was opened. But, thank Heaven! those brave
and hardy pioneers would not submit! There was enough of the blood of
the Puritans and of the Revolutionary Sires coursing in their veins, to
make them feel that submission, under such circumstances, would have
been a base betrayal of liberty, a surrender of honor, and a sacrifice
of every honest sentiment of justice and self-respect. "Come," they said
to the marauders,--"come, hack this flesh from our limbs, and scatter
these bones to bleach with those of so many of our friends and brothers,
already strewn upon the unshorn and desolate fields,--but do not ask us
to submit to wrongs so daring or to frauds so foul!" The marauders took
them at their word, and hewed and hacked them with shameless cruelty;
yet, with a singular forbearance, the friends of freedom did not hastily
resent the outrages with which they had been visited.
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