other papers. The following is the copy of a letter dated Sept.
21, 1800, written by a gentleman of Richmond, Va., and published in
the Boston _Gazette,_ Oct. 6th:--
"By this time, you have no doubt heard of the conspiracy, formed
in this country by the negroes, which, but for the interposition of
Providence, would have put the metropolis of the State, and even the
State itself, into their possession. A dreadful storm with a deluge
of rain, which carried away the bridges and rendered the water
courses every where impassable, prevented the execution of their
plot. _It was extensive and vast in its design. Nothing could have
been better contrived. The conspirators were to have seized on the
magazine, the treasury, the mills, and the bridges across James
river._ They were to have entered the city of Richmond in three
places with fire and sword, to commence an indiscriminate slaughter,
the French only excepted. They were then to have called on their
fellow negroes and the friends of humanity throughout the continent,
by proclamation, to rally round their standard. The magazine, which
was defenceless, would have supplied them with arms for many thousand
men. The treasury would have given them money, the mills bread, and
the bridges would have enabled them to let in their friends, and keep
out their enemies. Never was there a more propitious season for the
accomplishment of their purpose. The country is covered with rich
harvests of Indian corn; flocks and herds are every where fat in the
fields; and the liberty and equality doctrine, nonsensical and wicked
as it is, (in this land of tyrants and slaves,) is for electioneering
purposes sounding and resounding through our valleys and mountains in
every direction. The city of Richmond and the circumjacent country
are in arms, and have been so for ten or twelve days past. The
patrollers are doubled through the State, and the Governor, impressed
with the magnitude of the danger, has appointed for himself three
Aids de Camp. A number of conspirators have been hung, _and a great
many more are yet to be hung._ The trials and executions are going on
day by day. Poor deluded wretches! _Their democratic deluders,
conscious of their own guilt, and fearful of the public vengeance,
are most active in bringing them to punishment. "Quicquid delirant
reges, plectuntur Achivi"!_ Two important facts have been established
by the witnesses on the different trials. First, that the plan of
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