For the insurgents, if successful, the penitentiary held several thousand
stand of arms; the powder-house was well stocked; the Capitol contained
the State treasury; the mills would give them bread; the control of the
bridge across James River would keep off enemies from beyond. Thus
secured and provided, they planned to issue proclamations summoning to
their standard "their fellow-negroes and the friends of humanity
throughout the continent." In a week, it was estimated, they would have
fifty thousand men on their side, with which force they could easily
possess themselves of other towns; and, indeed, a slave named John
Scott--possibly the dangerous possessor of the ten dollars--was already
appointed to head the attack on Petersburg. But in case of final failure,
the project included a retreat to the mountains, with their new-found
property. John Brown was therefore anticipated by Gabriel, sixty years
before, in believing the Virginia mountains to have been "created, from
the foundation of the world, as a place of refuge for fugitive slaves."

These are the statements of the contemporary witnesses; they are repeated
in many newspapers of the year 1800, and are in themselves clear and
consistent. Whether they are on the whole exaggerated or under-stated, it
is now impossible to say. It is certain that a Richmond paper of Sept. 12
(quoted in the New-York _Gazette_ of Sept. 18) declares that "the plot
has been entirely exploded, which was shallow; and, had the attempt been
made to carry it into execution, but little resistance would have been
required to render the scheme entirely abortive." But it is necessary to
remember that this is no more than the Charleston newspapers said at the
very crisis of Denmark Vesey's formidable plot. "Last evening," wrote a
lady from Charleston in 1822, "twenty-five hundred of our citizens were
under arms to guard our property and lives. But it is a subject _not to
be mentioned_ [so underscored]; and unless you hear of it elsewhere, say