1740 the fleet of Admiral Vernon had returned from Cartagena, discomfited by yellow fever rather than the prowess of the enemy. Preparations were now going on in the colonies for an attack upon Havana. A letter from Gov The Spanish war. ernor Oglethorpe in Georgia mentioned a rumour that Catholic priests were to be furtively introduced into all the English colonies in the guise of dancing-masters, and at some concerted signal were to set fire to the principal towns, by way of forestalling and crippling the proposed expedition against Cuba. came. Shortly before this time a large number of negroes, including many savages lately kidnapped from Africa, had been brought to New York from Spanish America; and they seem to have aroused a feeling of dread, both for their own uncouthness and on account of the region from which they On the last day of February, 1741, a house in Broad Street was robbed of some silverware, coins, and pieces of linen. Suspicion fell upon a negro in the owner's employ; the negro was proved to be in the habit of meeting other negroes at Hughson's Tavern on the North River; a search was made, and some of the stolen articles were found in a pig-pen behind the house. Hughson's tavern. This Hughson's was a low place; among its inmates was an indentured white servant, Mary Burton, an abandoned girl, only sixteen years of age, who had been brought over from some English bridewell. Arrested on suspicion of complicity with the thieves, this creature sought to screen herself by charges and insinua Mary tions implicating her master and his family as well as sundry negroes. She thus found herself suddenly invested with an importance which she was cunning enough to seek to increase by appearing to know much more than she had yet told. On the 18th of March, owing it is thought to the carelessness of a plumber, a fire broke out in Fort George and the governor's house was consumed, with some other buildings. Within another week Sir Peter Warren's chimney took fire, but no harm was done. Then a fire broke out in a storehouse, which was traced to the careless dropping of ashes from a tobacco pipe. Three days afterward the hay in a cow-stable was found burning; there was an alarm and the Alarms of fire was put out, but people had scarcely fire. left the scene, when flames were descried shooting up in a loft over a kitchen where negroes were known to lodge. "The next morning coals were found under a haystack near a coach-house on Broadway. The following day a fire burst forth from the house of Sergeant Burns opposite the fort; and a few hours later, the roof of Mr. Hilton's house near the Fly Market was discovered on fire, and, on the same afternoon, Colonel Frederick Philipse's storehouse was all ablaze.” 2 From such alarming incidents there was nothing at all strange in the rapid genesis of a fierce and bloodthirsty panic. On April 11 the common council offered £100 reward, with a full pardon, 1 So the old Fort Amsterdam was called after the accession of George I. 2 Mrs. Lamb's History of the City of New York, ii. 582. conspiracy. The only white to any conspirator who should tell what he knew about a plot for burning the city. This offer elicited a "confession" from Mary Burton, who swore that, in meetings at Hughson's Tavern, certain negroes had matured such an incendiary plot, as the first step in a revolution which was to The alleged make Hughson king and a darky named Cæsar governor. She further averred that Colonel Philipse's Cuffy used to say that "some people had too much and others too little, but the time was coming when master Philipse would have less and Cuff more. people present at these meetings besides herself were Hughson and his wife and a loose woman named Carey. After a while, however, she "confessed" that a poor school-teacher, John Ury, who was known to be a Catholic, had taken part in the affair. The result of these disclosures was a reign of terror which lasted until September. In the course of it, Hughson and his wife, the teacher Ury, and the woman Carey were hanged, executions. and twenty other white persons were imprisoned. One hundred and fifty-four negroes were arrested, of whom fourteen were burned alive at the stake, and eighteen were hanged. Throughout the affair Mary Burton seems to have played the part which at Salem was shared among the "afflicted children," and just as at Salem, when the panic was clearly waning, the end was hastened by her aiming the accusations too high and striking at persons of consequence. The wretched girl received £100, the wages of her perjury. But after the terror was over, it began to be doubted, Wholesale and has ever since been doubted, whether the "Great Negro Plot" was anything more than a figment of the imagination.1 It is only a shallow criticism, however, and utterly devoid of historic appreciation, that would cite this melancholy affair in disparagement of the good people of colonial New York. The panic, as we have seen, arose very naturally from the circumstances, and it was not strange that some of the strongest and clearest heads in the community were turned by it. He would be a rash man who should venture to predict that even in Revulsion the most enlightened communities in the of feeling. world a recurrence of such horrors has forever ceased to be possible. It is pleasant to add that by a wholesome revulsion of popular feeling, soon after the panic of 1741, a sentiment was aroused in favour of the negroes; within ten years they were admitted to the franchise, and New York soon became honourably distinguished among the states that actively endeavoured to loosen their chains and insure their welfare. 1 Dunlap's History of New York, chapter xxi.; Smith's History of New York, ii. 70, 71; Colonial Documents, vi. 186, 196, 199, 201-203; Horsmanden's Negro Plot, New York, 1744. CHAPTER XVI. THE QUAKER COMMONWEALTH. WHEN William Penn sailed from Philadelphia to England, in the summer of 1684, it was in the hope of soon returning to take personal supervision of the affairs of his rapidly growing colony. But he soon discovered that England was full of troubles for him. The accession of James II. brought Penn into a prominence that had its unfortunate side. Friendship between Penn and James II. We have seen how it was the dying request of Admiral Penn that the Duke of York should have a care for the welfare of his son. The trust thus confided to James was amply redeemed. There can be little doubt that he was really fond of the young Quaker, and felt in his presence something of the fascination that the brilliant mind will often exert upon minds too narrow and dull to understand it. Moreover, in this case James's policy happened to coincide with his personal inclination. It would be impossible for any two sects within the limits of the Christian Church to differ more profoundly than the Roman Catholics and the Quakers. Yet circumstances were such in Penn's time that this radical hostility did not prevent the existence, for a moment, of something like a tacit alliance be |