a place of rendezvous for the worst negroes of the town; and from some
hints that Mary had dropped, it was suspected it had been the head-
quarters of the conspirators. But when, brought before the Grand Jury, she
refused to be sworn. They entreated her to take the oath and tell the
whole truth, but she only shook her head. They then threatened her, but
with no better success; they promised she should be protected from danger
and shielded from prosecution, but she still maintained an obstinate
silence. They then showed her the reward, and attempted to bribe her with
the wealth in store for her, but she almost spat on it in her scorn. This
poor negro slave showed an independence and stubbornness in the presence
of the jury that astonished them. Finding all their efforts vain, they
ordered her to be sent to jail. This terrified her, and she consented to
be sworn. But after taking the oath, she refused to say anything about the
fire. A theft had been traced to Hughson, and she told all she knew about
that, but about the fires would neither deny nor affirm anything. They
then appealed to her conscience painted before her the terrors of the
final judgment, and the torments of hell, till at last she broke down, and
proposed to make a clean breast of it. She commenced by saying that
Hughson had threatened to take her life if she told, and then again
hesitated. But at length, by persistent efforts, the following facts were
wrenched from her by piecemeal. She said that three negroes--giving their
names--had been in the habit of meeting at the tavern, and talking about
burning of the fort and city and murdering the people, and that Hughson
and his wife had promised to help them; after which Hughson was to be
governor and Cuff Phillipse king. That the first part of the story was
true, there is little doubt. How much, with the imagination and love of
the marvellous peculiar to her race, she added to it, it is not easy to
say. She said, moreover, that but one white person beside her master and
mistress was in the conspiracy, and that was an Irish girl known as Peggy,
"the Newfoundland Beauty." She had several _aliases_, and was an