fears, the feelings, the consciences, of those who had betrayed him, all
were in turn appealed to; but the facts were quite overpowering, and it
was too late to aid his comrades or himself. Then turning to the court,
he skilfully availed himself of the point which had so much impressed the
community: the intrinsic improbability that a man in his position of
freedom and prosperity should sacrifice every thing to free other people.
If they thought it so incredible, why not give him the benefit of the
incredibility? The act being, as they stated, one of infatuation, why
convict him of it on the bare word of men who, by their own showing, had
not only shared the infatuation, but proved traitors to it? An ingenious
defence,--indeed, the only one which could by any possibility be
suggested, anterior to the days of Choate and somnambulism; but in vain.
He was sentenced; and it was not, apparently, till the judge reproached
him for the destruction he had brought on his followers, that he showed
any sign of emotion. Then the tears came into his eyes. But he said not
another word.

The executions took place on five different days; and, bad as they were,
they might have been worse. After the imaginary Negro Plot of New York,
in 1741, thirteen negroes had been judicially burned alive; two had
suffered the same sentence at Charleston in 1808; and it was undoubtedly
some mark of progress, that in this case the gallows took the place of
the flames. Six were hanged on July 2, upon Blake's lands, near
Charleston,--Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Jesse, Ned, Rolla, and
Batteau,--the last three being slaves of the governor himself. Gullah
Jack and John were executed "on the Lines," near Charleston, on July 12;
and twenty-two more on July 26. Four others suffered their fate on July
30; and one more, William Garner, effected a temporary escape, was
captured, and tried by a different court, and was finally executed on
Aug. 9.