I understand perfectly your meaning. No countenance has been given Brown for any operations outside of Kansas _by the Kansas Committee_. I had occasion a few days ago to send him an earnest message from his friends here, urging him at once to go to Kansas and take part in the coming election, and throw the weight of his influence upon the side of right.... There is in Washington a disappointed and malicious man working with all the activity which hate and revenge can inspire to harm Brown, and to cast odium upon the friends of Kansas in Massachusetts. You probably know him. He has been to see Mr. Seward. Mr. Hale also can tell you something about him. God speed the right.[307]
May 15th, he wrote Mr. Wilson, relating to the arms, that "prompt measures have been taken and will be resolutely followed up to prevent any such monstrous perversion of a trust as would be the application of means raised for the defense of Kansas, to a purpose which the subscribers of the fund would disapprove and violently condemn."[308]
Because of these letters Dr. Howe has been severely criticised; and by Rear Admiral Chadwick unjustly charged with "gross prevarication."[309] But, in a time of war, would the distinguished admiral hesitate to deceive the enemy in a similar manner? The things which the Doctor said were, of course, untrue, but in saying them he did not intend to wrong the Senator or to deceive him to his disadvantage. The correspondence was not personal; Senator Wilson was an intermediary, or a medium of communication between Colonel Forbes and Brown's war committee. Howe, acting-for the committee, had the right to deceive the enemy--Forbes--in this manner. The letters he wrote were a stratagem of the war it was promoting. Brown would have disposed of Forbes in a more heroic manner. He wrote from Chatham: "We have those who are thoroughly posted up" (professional assassins) "to put upon his track and we beg to be allowed to do so."[310]
On May 14th, Mr. Stearns wrote to Brown enclosing a copy of Senator Wilson's letter, also notifying him officially, as chairman of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee, that the arms in his care belonging to the committee must not be used for any other purpose than for the defense of Kansas.[311] He then forestalled any possibility of future complication relating to the arms by foreclosing a lien, which he is said to have held, on all the property of the committee; and having thus obtained the title to the arms, he placed them in Brown's possession as his personal agent. By this arrangement, Mr. Sanborn says,