from their meetings as a talkative fellow who could not be trusted,—­a policy which his levity of manner, when examined in court, fully justified.  They took no women into counsel,—­not from any distrust apparently, but in order that their children might not be left uncared-for, in case of defeat and destruction.  House-servants were rarely trusted, or only when they had been carefully sounded by the chief leaders.  Peter Poyas, in commissioning an agent to enlist men, gave him excellent cautions:  “Don’t mention it to those waiting-men who receive presents of old coats, etc., from their masters, or they’ll betray us; I will speak to them.”  When he did speak, if he did not convince them, he at least frightened them; but the chief reliance was on the slaves hired out and therefore more uncontrolled,—­and also upon the country negroes.

The same far-sighted policy directed the conspirators to disarm suspicion by peculiarly obedient and orderly conduct.  And it shows the precaution with which the thing was carried on, that, although Peter Poyas was proved to have had a list of some six hundred persons, yet not one of his particular company was ever brought to trial.  As each leader kept to himself the names of his proselytes, and as Monday Gell was the only one of these who turned traitor, any opinion as to the numbers actually engaged must appear altogether conjectural.  One witness said nine thousand; another, six thousand six hundred.  These statements were probably extravagant, though not more so than Governor Bennett’s assertion, on the other side, that “all who were actually concerned had been brought to justice,”—­unless by this phrase he designates only the ringleaders.  The avowed aim of the Governor’s letter, indeed, is to smooth the thing over, for the credit and safety of the city; and its evasive tone contrasts strongly with the more frank and thorough statements of the Judges, made after the thing could no longer be hushed up.  These best authorities explicitly acknowledge that they had failed to detect more than a small minority of those concerned in the project, and seem to admit, that, if it had once been brought to a head, the slaves generally would have joined in.

“We cannot venture to say,” says the Intendant’s pamphlet, “to how many the knowledge of the intended effort was communicated, who, without signifying their assent, or attending any of the meetings, were yet prepared to profit by events.  That there are many who would not have permitted the enterprise to have failed at a critical moment, for the want of their cooeperation, we have the best reason for believing.”  So believed the community at large; and the panic was in proportion, when the whole danger was finally made public.  “The scenes I witnessed,” says one who has since narrated the circumstances, “and the declaration of the impending danger that met us at all times and on all occasions, forced the conviction that never were an