Hammett, whose master kept the establishment.  In Mr. Duquercron’s shop there were deposited for sale as many more weapons; and they had noted Mr. Schirer’s shop in Queen Street, and other gunsmiths’ establishments.  Finally, the State arsenal in Meeting Street, a building with no defences except ordinary wooden doors, was to be seized early in the outbreak.  Provided, therefore, that the first moves proved successful, all the rest appeared sure.

Very little seems to have been said among the conspirators in regard to any plans of riot or debauchery, subsequent to the capture of the city.  Either their imaginations did not dwell on them, or the witnesses did not dare to give testimony, or the authorities to print it.  Death was to be dealt out, comprehensive and terrible; but nothing more is mentioned.  One prisoner, Rolla, is reported in the evidence to have dropped hints in regard to the destiny of the women; and there was a rumor in the newspapers of the time, that he, or some other of Governor Bennett’s slaves, was to have taken the Governor’s daughter, a young girl of sixteen, for his wife, in the event of success; but this is all.  On the other hand, Denmark Vesey was known to be for a war of immediate and total extermination; and when some of the company opposed killing “the ministers and the women and children,” Vesey read from the Scriptures that all should be cut off, and said that “it was for their safety not to leave one white skin alive, for this was the plan they pursued at St. Domingo.”  And all this was not a mere dream of one lonely enthusiast, but a measure which had been maturing for four full years among several confederates, and had been under discussion for five months among multitudes of initiated “candidates.”

As usual with slave-insurrections, the best men and those most trusted were deepest in the plot.  Rolla was the only prominent conspirator who was not an active Church-member.  “Most of the ringleaders,” says a Charleston letter-writer of that day, “were the rulers or class-leaders in what is called the African Society, and were considered faithful, honest fellows.  Indeed, many of the owners could not be convinced, till the fellows confessed themselves, that they were concerned, and that the first object of all was to kill their masters.”  And the first official report declares that it would not be difficult to assign a motive for the insurrectionists, “if it had not been distinctly proved, that, with scarcely an exception, they had no individual hardship to complain of, and were among the most humanely treated negroes in the city.  The facilities for combining and confederating in such a scheme were amply afforded by the extreme indulgence and kindness which characterizes the domestic treatment of our slaves.  Many slave-owners among us, not satisfied with ministering to the wants of their domestics by all the comforts of abundant food and excellent clothing, with a misguided benevolence have not only permitted their instruction, but lent to such efforts their approbation and applause.”