In the same period a smaller gang with John Washburn as its leading spirit and with Natchez as informal headquarters, was busy at burglary, highway and flatboat robbery, pocket picking and slave stealing.

In the evening your father gave his lecture at a little club-room, got up chiefly by Mr. and Mrs. Washburn at their own expense.

[Footnote 57: The manifold felonies of the gang were described by Washburn in a dying confession after his conviction for a murder at Cincinnati.