It is an unfailing opiate to turn over the drowsy files of the Richmond Enquirer, until the moment when those dry and dusty pages are suddenly kindled into flame by the torch of Nat Turner (2172).

“Then the terror flared on increasing, until the remotest Southern States were found shuddering at nightly rumors of insurrection;...until the very boldest words of freedom were reported as uttered in the Virginia House of Delegates with unclosed doors; u

“The bill of fare was to be simple: one brought a pig, and another some brandy, giving to the meeting an aspect so cheaply convivial that no one would have imagined it to be the final consummation of a conspiracy which had been for six months in preparati

“The party had remained together from twelve to three o'clock, when a seventh man joined them,—a short, stout, powerfully built person, of dark mulatto complexion, and strongly marked African features, but with a face full of expression and resolution. Th

“He had belonged originally to Benjamin Turner,-from whom he took his last name, slaves having usually no patronymic; —had then been transferred to Putnam Moore, and then to his present owner” (2173).

“He had, by his own account, felt himself singled out from childhood for some great work; and he had some peculiar marks on his person, which, joined to his mental precocity, were enough to occasion, among his youthful companions, a superstitious faith in

“This impression of personal destiny grew with his growth: he fasted, prayed, Preached, read the Bible, heard voices when he walked behind his plough, and communicated his revelations to the awe-struck slaves. They told him, in return, that, ‘If they had