from New Orleans, of May 1st, in which we find that an important
discovery had been made a few days previous in that city. The following
is an extract:--'Four days ago, as some planters were digging under
ground, they found a square room containing eleven thousand stand of
arms and fifteen thousand cartridges, each of the cartridges containing
a bullet.' It is said the negroes intended to rise as soon as the sickly
season began, and obtain possession of the city by massacring the white
population. The same letter states that the mayor had prohibited the
opening of Sunday-schools for the instruction of blacks, under a penalty
of five hundred dollars for the first offence, and for the second,
death."

Such were the terrors that came back from nine other Slave States, as
the echo of the voice of Nat Turner; and when it is also known that the
subject was at once taken up by the legislatures of other States, where
there was no public panic, as in Missouri and Tennessee,--and when,
finally, it is added that reports of insurrection had been arriving all
that year from Rio Janeiro, Martinique, St. Jago, Antigua, Caraccas, and
Tortola, it is easy to see with what prolonged distress the accumulated
terror must have weighed down upon Virginia, during the two months that
Nat Turner lay hid.

True, there were a thousand men in arms in Southampton County, to
inspire security. But the blow had been struck by only seven men before;
and unless there were an armed guard in every house, who could tell but
any house might at any moment be the scene of new horrors? They might
kill or imprison unresisting negroes by day, but could they resist their
avengers by night? "The half cannot be told," wrote a lady from another
part of Virginia, at this time, "of the distresses of the people. In
Southampton County, the scene of the insurrection, the distress beggars
description. A gentleman who has been there says that even here, where
there has been great alarm, we have no idea of the situation of those in
that county.... I do not hesitate to believe that many negroes around us
would join in a massacre as horrible as that which has taken place, if
an opportunity should offer."

Meanwhile the cause of all this terror was made the object of desperate
search. On September 17th the Governor offered a reward of five hundred
dollars for his capture, and there were other rewards swelling the
amount to eleven hundred dollars,--but in vain. No one could t