last, lest it should reach the dangerous eyes of the slaves. The same
thing had happened, it was added, in many other families. This partially
accounts for the great difficulty now to be found in obtaining a single
copy of either publication; and this is why, to the readers of American
history, Denmark Vesey and Peter Poyas have commonly been but the shadows
of names.




NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION

During the year 1831, up to the 23d of August, the Virginia newspapers
seem to have been absorbed in the momentous problems which then occupied
the minds of intelligent American citizens: What Gen. Jackson should do
with the scolds, and what with the disreputables? should South Carolina
be allowed to nullify? and would the wives of cabinet ministers call on
Mrs. Eaton? It is an unfailing opiate to turn over the drowsy files of
the Richmond _Enquirer_, until the moment when those dry and dusty pages
are suddenly kindled into flame by the torch of Nat Turner. Then the
terror flared on increasing, until the remotest Southern States were
found shuddering at nightly rumors of insurrection; until far-off
European colonies--Antigua, Martinique, Caraccas, Tortola--recognized by
some secret sympathy the same epidemic alarms; until the very boldest
words of freedom were reported as uttered in the Virginia House of
Delegates with unclosed doors; until an obscure young man named Garrison
was indicted at common law in North Carolina, and had a price set upon
his head by the Legislature of Georgia.

Near the south-eastern border of Virginia, in Southampton County, there