great disgrace to the country.”  But among all the reports there are only two sentences which really reveal the secret soul of Denmark Vesey, and show his impulses and motives.  “He said he did not go with Creighton to Africa, because he had not a will; he wanted to stay and see what he could do for his fellow-creatures.”  The other takes us still nearer home.  Monday Gell stated in his confession, that Vesey, on first broaching the plan to him, said “he was satisfied with his own condition, being free, but, as all his children were slaves, he wished to see what could be done for them.”

It is strange to turn from this simple statement of a perhaps intelligent preference, on the part of a parent, for seeing his offspring in a condition of freedom, to the naive astonishment of his judges.  “It is difficult to imagine,” says the sentence finally passed on Denmark Vesey, “what infatuation could have prompted you to attempt an enterprise so wild and visionary.  You were a free man, comparatively wealthy, and enjoyed every comfort compatible with your situation.  You had, therefore, much to risk and little to gain.”  Is slavery, then, a thing so intrinsically detestable, that a man thus favored will engage in a plan thus desperate merely to rescue his children from it?  “Vesey said the negroes were living such an abominable life, they ought to rise.  I said, I was living well; he said, though I was, others were not, and that ’t was such fools as I that were in the way and would not help them, and that after all things were well he would mark me.”  “His general conversation,” said another witness, a white boy, “was about religion, which he would apply to slavery; as, for instance, he would speak of the creation of the world, in which he would say all men had equal rights, blacks as well as whites, etc.; all his religious remarks were mingled with slavery.”  And the firmness of this purpose did not leave him, even after the betrayal of his cherished plans.  “After the plot was discovered,” said Monday Gell, in his confession, “Vesey said it was all over, unless an attempt were made to rescue those who might be condemned, by rushing on the people and saving the prisoners, or all dying together.”

The only person to divide with Vesey the claim of leadership was Peter Poyas.  Vesey was the missionary of the cause, but Peter was the organizing mind.  He kept the register of “candidates,” and decided who should or should not be enrolled.  “We can’t live so,” he often reminded his confederates; “we must break the yoke.”  “God has a hand in it; we have been meeting for four years and are not yet betrayed.”  Peter was a ship-carpenter, and a slave of great value.  He was to be the military leader.  His plans showed some natural generalship; he arranged the night-attack; he planned the enrolment of a mounted troop to scour the streets; and he had a list of all the shops where arms and ammunition were kept for sale.  He voluntarily