Becoming suspicious that a school of this kind was maintained at the home of De Baptiste, the police watched the place but failed to find sufficient evidence to close the institution before it had done its work.[1] [Footnote 1: Simmons, _Men of Mark_, p.

352.] In 1854 there was found in Norfolk, Virginia, what the radically proslavery people considered a dangerous white woman.

It was discovered that one Mrs.Douglass and her daughter had for three years been teaching a school maintained for the education of Negroes.[1] It was evident that this institution had not been run so clandestinely but that the opposition to the education of Negroes in that city had probably been too weak to bring about the close of the school at an earlier date.

Mrs.Douglass and her pupils were arrested and brought before the court, where she was charged with violating the laws of the State.

The defendant acknowledged her guilt, but, pleading ignorance of the law, was discharged on the condition that she would not commit the same "crime" again.