after the apprehension of General Gabriel, that they had made some
sad mistakes. This fact, with others, caused such a revulsion of
feeling, and excited so great a sympathy in behalf of the poor
creatures, that they were obliged, by a moral necessity, to pause in
their course.

Under date of Oct. 13th, the _Commercial Advertiser_ thus writes:--

"The trials of the negroes concerned in the late insurrection are
suspended until the opinion of the Legislature can be had on the
subject. _This measure is said to be owing to the immense numbers,
who are implicated in the plot, whose death, should they all be found
guilty and be executed, will nearly produce the annihilation of the
blacks in this part of the country."_

The next day, Oct. 14th, a correspondent from Richmond makes a
similar statement with this addition:--

"A conditional amnesty is perhaps expected. At the next session of
the Legislature of Virginia, they took into consideration the subject
referred to them, _in secret session, with closed doors._ The _whole_
result of their deliberations has never yet been made public, as the
injunction of secrecy has never been removed. To satisfy the Court,
the public, and themselves, they had a task so difficult to perform,
that it is not surprising that their deliberations were in secret."

From 1800 till 1816, nothing was divulged. In the spring of 1816,
the Hon. Charles Fenton Mercer, in a speech delivered by him in 1833,
says, "The intelligence broke in upon me, like a ray of light through
the profoundest gloom, and by a mere accident, which occurred in the