bullets, hitting the guilty ones first. Moreover, they disable rather than
kill--which is just as effectual, and far more desirable. In addition to
all this, being trained to one purpose, instructed to one duty, a mob
would be their natural enemies, and hence sympathy with them in any cause
almost impossible.



CHAPTER II.


THE NEGRO RIOTS OF 1712-1741.

Almost impossible for the present Generation to comprehend its true
Character and Effect on the People.--Description of New York at that
Time.--The Negro Slaves.--The Negro Riot of 1712.--Description of it.--The
Winter of 1741.--Governor's House burned down.--Other Fires.--Suspicion of
the People.--Arrest and Imprisonment of the Blacks.--Reward offered for
the supposed Conspirators.--Alarm and Flight of the Inhabitants.--
Examination and Confession of Mary Burton.--Peggy, the Newfoundland
Beauty, and the Hughson Family.--The Conspiracy.--Executions.--Fast.--
Hughson's Hearing.--Hung in Chains.--The Body, and that of a Negro, left
to swing and rot in the Air.--Strange Change in the Appearances of the
Bodies.--The People throng to look at them.--Negroes burned at the Stake.
--Terrific Spectacle.--Bloody Summer.--Execution of a Catholic Priest.--
Strange Scenes.--Upper Classes accused.--Executions stopped.--Reason of
the Panic.

Probably no event of comparatively modern times--certainly none in our
history--has occurred so extraordinary in some of its phases, as the negro