The "Pearl", with the fugitives hidden among boxes, began its way down the Potomac. It was delayed overnight by the shift in tides and then had to wait out rough weather from its anchor down the bay. In Washington the alarm was raised in the morning, as numerous slaveholders found their enslaved people had escaped. Historical accounts conflict and are not clear as to what details were known. Slaveholders put together an armed posse that went downriver on a steamboat. The steamboat caught up with the "Pearl" at Point Lookout, Maryland, and the posse seized it, towing the ship and its valuable human cargo back to Washington, DC. If the posse had gone north to Baltimore, another likely escape route, the "Pearl" might have got away and reached its destination.