210 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

apprehend all negroes who had assembled them-
selves in a riotous manner or had absconded from
their masters.

In 1712, during the Administration of Governor
Robert Hunter, a group of negroes, perhaps forty
in number, formed a plot which justified the terror
of their masters, though it was so mad that it
could have originated only in savage minds. These
blacks planned to destroy all the white people of
the city, then numbering over six thousand. Meet-
ing in an orchard the negroes set fire to a shed and
then lurked about in the shadows, armed with
every kind of weapon on which they could lay
hands.

As the negroes had expected, all the citizens of
the neighborhood, seeing the conflagration, came
running to the spot to fight the flames. The blacks
succeeded in killing nine men and wounding many
more before the alarm reached the fort. Then of
course the affair ended. The slaves fled to the
forests at the northern end of the island; but the
soldiers stationed sentries and then hunted down
the negroes, beating the woods to be sure that none
escaped. Six of the negroes, seeing that their doom
was sealed, killed themselves, and the fate of the
captives showed that they well knew what mercy