ome time thereafter; and perhaps the slaves here and there were
unusually restive. Whether the one or the other of these conditions
was most responsible, revelations and rumors were for several years
conspicuously numerous. In 1802 there were capital convictions of fourteen
insurgent or conspiring slaves in six scattered counties of Virginia;[64]
and panicky reports of uprisings were sent out from Hartford and Bertie
Counties, North Carolina.[65] In July, 1804, the mayor of Savannah received
from Augusta "information highly important to the safety, peace and
security" of his town, and issued appropriate orders to the local
militia.[66] Among rumors flying about South Carolina in this period, one
on a December day in 1805 telling of risings above and below Columbia
led to the planting of cannon before the state house there and to the
instruction of the night patrols to seize every negro found at large. An
over-zealous patrolman thereupon shot a slave who was peacefully following
his own master, and was indicted next day for murder. The peaceful passing
of the night brought a subsidence of the panic with the coming of day.[67]

[Footnote 64: Vouchers as above.]

[Footnote 65: Augusta, Ga., _Chronicle_, June 26, 1802.]

[Footnote 66: Thomas Gamble, Jr., _History of the City Government of
Savannah_ [Savannah, 1900], p. 68.]

[Footnote 67: "Diary of Edward Hooker," in the American Historical
Association _Report_ for 1896, pp. 881, 882.]

In Virginia, again, there were disturbing rumors at one place or another
every year or two from 1809 to 1814,[68] but no occurrence of tangible
character until the Boxley plot of 1816 in Spottsylvania and Louisa
Counties. George Boxley, the white proprietor of a country store, was a
visionary somewhat of John Brown's type. Participating in the religious
gatherings of the negroes and telling them that a little white bird had
brought him a holy message to deliver his fellowmen from bondage, he
enlisted many blacks in his project for insurrection. But before the
plot was ripe it was betrayed by a slave woman, and several negroes were
arrested. Boxley thereupon marched with a dozen followers on a Quixotic
errand of release, but on the road the blacks fell away, and he, after some
time in hiding, surrendered himself. Six of the negroes after conviction
were hanged and a like number transported; but Boxley himself broke jail
and escaped.[69]

[Footnote 68: _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_,