A MARTYR, OR A JUDAS?––The Iowa Freeman intimates the opinion that Doyle, the white man recently sentenced to the penitentiary, in Ky., for aiding the Lexington fugitives, is an honest man, and that our suspicions do him injustice. If our western brother will give us any convincing proof of his correctness, we will thankfully acknowledge his kindness, and will hasten to make reparation to an injured man. It is quite enough that one Judas Iscariot has existed: we have no ambition to discover a second. Moral deformity gives us no pleasure, and we thank the man who shows us virtue and goodness where we have only seen vice. But we have too much reason to fear that in this case the facts are no better than we suspected. We have been informed that, while in Cincinnati, Doyle was intimate with the slave catching constables, and that he was heard to boast of having made money by informing of runaway slaves; and after he was arrested, it is said that he confessed he intended to return his victims again to their masters. His conduct in several particulars confirms these statements, and we believe it is the general opinion among the friends of the slave in Ohio and Kentucky, that he has fallen into his own pit. We once knew a creature named Doyle who used to serve as kidnapper's pimp in Cumberland county, and at length decoyed a free colored girl to Baltimore, where he attempted to sell her as a slave, but being detected in his villainy he fled, and has not since been heard of in these parts. Our reluctance to believe in a plurality of devils, and the similarity in names, led us to suspect that he was the Kentucky adventurer and convict. If so, he is now receiving retribution for a long score of villanies [sic]. If our opinion of this man is unjust, we hope some one who knows will set us right.
"A Martyr, Or A Judas?," Philadelphia (PA) Freeman, December 21, 1848