in sack-cloth. There was
an ordinance of the city, that any slave who wore a badge of mourning
should be imprisoned and flogged. They generally got the law, which is
thirty-nine lashes, but sometimes it was according to the decision of
the Court." "I heard, at the time, of arms being buried in coffins at
Sullivan's Island." "In the time of the insurrection, the slaves were
tried in a small room, in the jail where they were confined. No colored
person was allowed to go within two squares of the prison. Those two
squares were filled with troops, five thousand of whom were on duty, day
and night. I was told, Vesey said to those that tried him, that the
work of insurrection would go on; but as none but white persons were
permitted to be present, I cannot tell whether he said it."

During all this time there was a guarded silence in the Charleston
journals, which strongly contrasts with the extreme publicity at
last given to the testimony. Even the "National Intelligencer,"
at Washington, passed lightly over the affair, and deprecated the
publication of particulars. The Northern editors, on the other hand,
eager for items, were constantly complaining of this reserve, and
calling for further intelligence. "The Charleston papers," said the
"Hartford Courant" of July 16th, "have been silent on the subject of the
insurrection, but letters from this city state that it has created much
alarm, and that two brigades of troops were under arms for some time to
suppress any risings that might have taken place." "You will doubtless
hear," wrote a Charleston correspondent of the same paper, just before,
"many reports, and some exaggerated ones." "There was certainly a
disposition to revolt, and some preparations made, principally by the
plantation negroes, to take the city." "We hoped they would progress so
far as to enable us to ascertain and punish the ringleaders." "Assure my
friends that we feel in perfect security, although the number of nightly
guards and other demonstrations may induce a belief among strangers to
the contrary."

The strangers would have been very blind strangers, if they had not
been more influenced by the actions of the Charlestonians than by their
words. The original information was given on May 25th. The time passed,
and the plot failed on June 16th. A plan for its revival on July 2d
proved abortive. Yet a letter from Charleston in the "Hartford Courant"
of August 6th, represented the panic as unabated: "Grea