carry Richmond without them; and Saturday was therefore retained as the
momentous day.

This was the confession, so far as it is now accessible; and on the
strength of it, Ben Woolfolk was promptly pardoned by the court for all
his sins, past, present, or to come, and they proceeded with their
investigation. Of Gabriel little appeared to be known, except that he had
been the property of Thomas Prosser, a young man who had recently
inherited a plantation a few miles from Richmond, and who had the
reputation among his neighbors of "behaving with great barbarity to his
slaves." Gabriel was, however, reported to be "a fellow of courage and
intellect above his rank in life," to be about twenty-five years of age,
and to be guiltless of the alphabet.

Further inquiry made it appear that the preparations of the insurgents
were hardly adequate to any grand revolutionary design,--at least, if
they proposed to begin with open warfare. The commissariat may have been
well organized, for black Virginians are apt to have a prudent eye to the
larder; but the ordnance department and the treasury were as low as if
Secretary Floyd had been in charge of them. A slave called "Prosser's
Ben" testified that he went with Gabriel to see Ben Woolfolk, who was
going to Caroline County to enlist men, and that "Gabriel gave him three
shillings for himself and three other negroes, to be expended in
recruiting men." Their arms and ammunition, so far as reported, consisted
of a peck of bullets, ten pounds of powder, and twelve scythe-swords,
made by Gabriel's brother Solomon, and fitted with handles by Gabriel
himself. "These cutlasses," said subsequently a white eye-witness, "are
made of scythes cut in two and fixed into well-turned handles. I have
never seen arms so murderous. Those who still doubt the importance of the
conspiracy which has been so fortunately frustrated would shudder with