distressing occurrences were experienced by them; while the plantations
in the lower country would have been disorganized, and the agricultural
interests have sustained an enormous loss." The Northern journals had
already expressed still greater anxieties. "It appears," said the
New-York _Commercial Advertiser_, "that, but for the timely disclosure,
the whole of that State would in a few days have witnessed the horrid
spectacle once witnessed in St. Domingo."

My friend, David Lee Child, has kindly communicated to me a few memoranda
of a conversation held long since with a free colored man who had worked
in Vesey's shop during the time of the insurrection; and these generally
confirm the official narratives. "I was a young man then," he said; "and,
owing to the policy of preventing communication between free colored
people and slaves, I had little opportunity of ascertaining how the
slaves felt about it. I know that several of them were abused in the
street, and some put in prison, for appearing in sackcloth. There was an
ordinance of the city, that any slave who wore a badge of mourning should
be imprisoned and flogged. They generally got the law, which is
thirty-nine lashes; but sometimes it was according to the decision of the
court." "I heard, at the time, of arms being buried in coffins at
Sullivan's Island." "In the time of the insurrection, the slaves were
tried in a small room in the jail where they were confined. No colored
person was allowed to go within two squares of the prison. Those two
squares were filled with troops, five thousand of whom were on duty day
and night. I was told, Vesey said to those that tried him, that the work
of insurrection would go on; but as none but white persons were permitted
to be present, I cannot tell whether he said it."

During all this time there was naturally a silence in the Charleston
journals, which strongly contrasts with the extreme publicity at last