Indeed, the evidence against even
these four was insufficient for a capital conviction, although one was
overheard, through stratagem, by the Intendant himself, and arrested
on the spot. This man was a Scotchman, another a Spaniard, a third a
German, and the fourth a Carolinian. The last had for thirty years kept
a shop in the neighborhood of Charleston; he was proved to have asserted
that "the negroes had as much right to fight for their liberty as the
white people," had offered to head them in the enterprise, and had said
that in three weeks he would have two thousand men. But in no case, it
appears, did these men obtain the confidence of the slaves, and the
whole plot was conceived and organized, so far as appears, without the
slightest cooeperation from any white man.
The trial of the conspirators began on Wednesday, June 19th. At the
request of the Intendant, Justices Kennedy and Parker summoned five
freeholders (Messrs. Drayton, Heyward, Pringle, Legare, and Turnbull)
to constitute a court, under the provisions of the act "for the better
ordering and governing negroes and other slaves.
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