horror at the sight of these instruments of death." And as it presently
appeared that a conspirator named Scott had astonished his master by
accidentally pulling ten dollars from a ragged pocket which seemed
inadequate to the custody of ten cents, it was agreed that the plot might
still be dangerous, even though the resources seemed limited.

And indeed, as was soon discovered, the effective weapon of the
insurgents lay in the very audacity of their plan. If the current
statements of all the Virginia letter-writers were true, "nothing could
have been better contrived." It was to have taken effect on the first day
of September. The rendezvous for the blacks was to be a brook six miles
from Richmond. Eleven hundred men were to assemble there, and were to be
divided into three columns, their officers having been designated in
advance. All were to march on Richmond,--then a town of eight thousand
inhabitants,--under cover of night. The right wing was instantly to seize
upon the penitentiary building, just converted into an arsenal; while the
left wing was to take possession of the powder-house. These two columns
were to be armed chiefly with clubs, as their undertaking depended for
success upon surprise, and was expected to prevail without hard fighting.
But it was the central force, armed with muskets, cutlasses, knives, and
pikes, upon which the chief responsibility rested; these men were to
enter the town at both ends simultaneously, and begin a general carnage,
none being excepted save the French inhabitants, who were supposed for
some reason to be friendly to the negroes. In a very few hours, it was
thought, they would have entire control of the metropolis. And that this
hope was not in the least unreasonable, was shown by the subsequent
confessions of weakness from the whites. "They could scarcely have failed
of success," wrote the Richmond correspondent of the Boston _Chronicle_;
"for, after all, we could only muster four or five hundred men, of whom
not more than thirty had muskets."