He was ably and eloquently
defended by Charles Mitchell, a young lawyer of the Baltimore Bar. But
the prejudice of judge and jury rendered the verdict of guilty a
foregone conclusion. April 17, 1830, the Court imposed a penalty of
fifty dollars and costs, which, with the fine amounted in all to nearly
one hundred dollars. The fine and costs Garrison could not pay, and he
was therefore committed to jail as a common malefactor. His confinement
lasted seven weeks. He did not languish during this period. His head and
hands were in fact hardly ever more active than during the term of his
imprisonment. Shut out by Maryland justice from work without the jail,
he found and did that which needed to be done within "high walls and
huge." He was an extraordinary prisoner and was treated with
extraordinary consideration by the Warden. He proved himself a genuine
evangel to the prisoners, visiting them in their cells, cheering them by
his bouyant and benevolent words, giving them what he had, a brother's
sympathy, which to these ill-fated ones, was more than gold or silver.
He indited for such of them as he deemed deserving, letters and
petitions to the Governor praying their pardon; and he had the great
satisfaction of seeing many of his efforts in this regard crowned with
success.
But more than this his imprisonment afforded him an opportunity for a
closer acquaintance with the barbarism of slavery than he could possibly
have made had he lived otherwise in Baltimore.
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