paper, a few days afterwards, by the absorption of his workmen in patrol
duties and describes "dismay and terror" as the condition of the people
of "all ages and sexes." In Jones, Twiggs, and Monroe Counties, the same
alarms were reported; and in one place "several slaves were tied to a
tree, while a militia captain hacked at them with his sword."

In Alabama, at Columbus and Fort Mitchell, a rumor was spread of a joint
conspiracy of Indians and negroes. At Claiborne the panic was still
greater: the slaves were said to be thoroughly organized through that
part of the State, and multitudes were imprisoned; the whole alarm being
apparently founded on one stray copy of the Boston _Liberator_.

In Tennessee, the Shelbyville _Freeman_ announced that an insurrectionary
plot had just been discovered, barely in time for its defeat, through the
treachery of a female slave. In Louisville, Ky., a similar organization
was discovered or imagined, and arrests were made in consequence. "The
papers, from motives of policy, do not notice the disturbance," wrote one
correspondent to the Portland _Courier_. "Pity us!" he added.

But the greatest bubble burst in Louisiana. Capt. Alexander, an English
tourist, arriving in New Orleans at the beginning of September, found the
whole city in tumult. Handbills had been issued, appealing to the slaves
to rise against their masters, saying that all men were born equal,
declaring that Hannibal was a black man, and that they also might have
great leaders among them. Twelve hundred stand of weapons were said to
have been found in a black man's house; five hundred citizens were under
arms, and four companies of regulars were ordered to the city, whose
barracks Alexander himself visited.

If such was the alarm in New Orleans, the story, of course, lost nothing