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So long as insanity is treated as a crime, instead of a misfortune, as our present system practically does thus treat it, the protection of our individual liberty imperatively demands such an enactment. Many contend that every person is insane on some point. On this ground, all persons are liable to be legally imprisoned, under our present system; for intelligent physicians are everywhere to be found, who will not scruple to give a certificate that an individual is a Monomaniac on that point where he differs from him in opinion! This Monomania in many instances is not insanity, but individuality, which is the highest natural development of a human being.

Gentlemen, I know, and have felt, the horrors -- the untold soul agonies -- attendant on such a persecution. Therefore, as philanthropists, I beg of you to guard your own liberties, and those of your countrymen, by recommending the adoption of these two bills as an imperative necessity.

The above bills were presented to the Committee on the Commitment of the Insane, in Boston State-House, March 29, 1865.

The result was, the petition triumphed, by so changing the mode of commitment, that, instead of the husband being allowed to enter his wife at his simple request, added to the certificate of two physicians, he must now get ten of her nearest relatives to join with him in this request; and the person committed, instead of not being allowed to communicate by writing to any one outside of the Institution, except under the censorship of the Superintendent, can now send a letter to each of these ten relatives, and to any other two persons whom the person committed shall designate. This the Superintendent is required to do within two days from the time of commitment.

This Law is found in Chapter 268, Section 2, of the General Laws of Massachusetts.

I regard my personal liberty in Massachusetts now as not absolutely in the power of my husband; as my family friends must now co-operate in order to make my commitment legal. And since my family relatives are now fully satisfied of my sanity, after having seen me for themselves, I feel now comparatively safe, while in Massachusetts.

CHAPTER X.
My Father Becomes my Protector.

I therefore returned to my father's house in Sunderland, and finding both of my dear parents feeble, and in need of some one to care for them, and finding myself in need of a season of rest and quiet, I accepted their kind invitation to make their house my home for the present. At this point my father indicated his true position in relation to my interests, by his self-moved efforts in my behalf, in writing and sending the following letter to Mr. Packard.

"Sunderland, Sept. 2, 1865.

"REV. SIR: I think the time has fully come for you to give up to Elizabeth her clothes. Whatever reason might have existed to justify you in retaining them, has, in process of time, entirely vanished. There is not a shadow of excuse for retaining them It is my presumption there is not an individual in this town who would justify you in retaining them a single day.

Elizabeth is about to make a home at my house, and I must be her protector. She is very destitute of clothing, and greatly needs all those articles which are hers.

I hope to hear from you soon, before I shall be constrained to take another step. Yours, Respectfully,

REV. T. PACKARD. SAMUEL WARE."

The result of this letter was, that in about twenty-four hours after the letter was delivered, Mr. Packard brought the greater part of my wardrobe and delivered it into the hands of my father.

In a few weeks after this event, Mr. Packard's place in the pulpit in Sunderland was filled by a candidate for settlement, and he left the place.

The reasons why he thus left his ministerial charge in this place, cannot perhaps be more summarily given than by transcribing the following letter which my father requested me to write for him, in answer to Rev. Dr. Pomeroy's letter, inquiring of my father why Mr. Packard had left Sunderland.

Sunderland, Oct. 28, 1865.

DR. POMEROY, DEAR SIR: I am sorry to say that my dear father feels too weak to reply to your kind and affectionate letter of the twenty-third instant, and therefore I cheerfully consent to reply to it myself."

As to the subject of your letter, it is as you intimated. We have every reason to believe that my father's defense of me, has been the indirect cause of Mr. Packard's leaving Sunderland; although we knew nothing of the matter until he left, and a candidate filled his place.

Neither father, mother, nor I, have used any direct influence to undermine the confidence of this people in Mr. Packard.

But where this simple fact, that I have been imprisoned three years, is known to have become a demonstrated truth, by the decision of a jury, after a thorough legal investigation of five days' trial, it is found to be rather an unfortunate truth for the public sentiment of the present age to grapple with.

And Mr. Packard and his persecuting party may yet find I uttered no fictitious sentiment, when I remarked to Dr. McFarland in the Asylum that, "I shall yet live down this slander of Insanity, and also live down my persecutors!"