He was an elderly man, used to a refined and easy life, somewhat
portly in person, and, as he said, he fully believed such treatment
would kill him. The fierceness of their manner convinced him that
they meant to execute the threat, and looking upon it as a sentence
of death, he yielded and took the oath. He said that being in duress
of such a sort, and himself a lawyer, he considered that he had a
moral right to escape from his captors in this way, though he would
not have yielded to anything short of what seemed to him an imminent
danger of his life. The obligation, he declared, was utterly odious
to him and was not binding on his conscience; but he had lost no
time in putting himself into my hands, and would submit to whatever
I should decide in the matter. It would be humiliating and subject
him to misconstruction by others if he took conflicting oaths, but
he was willing to abjure the obligation he had taken, if I demanded
it, and would voluntarily renew his allegiance to the United States
with full purpose to keep it.
He was deeply agitated, and I thoroughly pitied him. My acquaintance
with him in my former campaign gave me entire confidence in his
sincerity, and made me wish to spare him any fresh embarrassment or
pain.
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