slaveholders and slaves, and that the only path of safety is the path
of duty, which demands the immediate repentance of all sin, and
especially that "sum of all villanies," slavery?

In the year 1800, the city of Richmond, Va., and indeed the whole
slaveholding country were thrown into a state of intense excitement,
consternation and alarm, by the discovery of an intended insurrection
among the slaves. The plot was laid by a slave named Gabriel, who was
claimed as the property of Mr. Thomas Prosser. A full and true
account of this General Gabriel, and of the proceedings consequent on
the discovery of the plot, has never yet been published. In 1831 a
short account, which is false in almost every particular, appeared in
the Albany _Evening Journal_ under the head of "Gabriel's Defeat." It
was the same year republished in the first volume of the _Liberator,_
and during the last year (1859) has been extensively republished in
many other papers. The following is the copy of a letter dated Sept.
21, 1800, written by a gentleman of Richmond, Va., and published in
the Boston _Gazette,_ Oct. 6th:--



"By this time, you have no doubt heard of the conspiracy, formed
in this country by the negroes, which, but for the interposition of
Providence, would have put the metropolis of the State, and even the
State itself, into their possession. A dreadful storm with a deluge
of rain, which carried away the bridges and rendered the water
courses every where impassable, prevented the execution of their
plot. _It was extensive and vast in its design. Nothing could have
been better contrived. The conspirators were to have seized on the
magazine, the treasury, the mills, and the bridges across James