1822.
CITY COUNCIL,
August 13th, 1822.
“Resolved, that the Intendant be requested to prepare for publication, an account of the late intended Insurrection in this City, with a Statement of the Trials and such other facts in connexion with the same as may be deemed of public interest.”
TO THE PUBLIC.
In complying with the objects of the above Resolution, I have not been insensible to the difficulties and embarrassments necessarily incident to the subject, as to what it might be politic either to publish or suppress. With the advice, however, of the Corporation, I have deemed a full publication of the prominent circumstances of the late commotion the most judicious course, as suppression might assume the appearance of timidity or injustice. Whilst such a Statement is due to the character of our community, and justification of our laws, there can be no harm in the salutary inculcation of one lesson, among a certain portion of our population, that there is nothing they are bad enough to do, that we are not powerful enough to punish.
J. HAMILTON, jun. Intendant,
Charleston, August 16th, 1822.
AN ACCOUNT, &C.
On Thursday, the 30th of May last, about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the Intendant of Charleston was informed by a gentleman of great respectability, (who, that morning, had returned from the country) that a favourite and confidential slave of his had communicated to him, on his arrival in town, a conversation which had taken place at the market on the Saturday preceding, between himself and a black man; which afforded strong reasons for believing that a revolt and insurrection were in contemplation among a proportion at least of our black population. The Corporation was forthwith summoned to meet at 5 o’clock, for the purpose of hearing the narrative of the slave who had given this information to his master, to which meeting the attendance of His Excellency the Governor was solicited; with which invitation he promptly complied. Between, however, the hours of 3 and 5 o’clock, the gentleman who had conveyed the information to the Intendant, having again examined his slave, was induced to believe, that the negro fellow who had communicated the intelligence of the intended revolt to the slave in question, belonged to Messrs. J. &. D. Paul, Broad Street, and resided in their premises. Accordingly, with a promptitude worthy of all praise, without waiting for the interposition of the civil authority he applied to the Messrs. Paul and had the whole of their male servants committed to the Guard-House, until the individual who had accosted the slave of this gentleman, on the occasion previously mentioned, could be identified from among them.
On the assembling of the Corporation at five, the slave of this gentleman was brought before them, having previously identified Mr. Paul’s William as the man who had accosted him in the market, he then related the following circumstances: