214 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

Catholics had stirred up the plot; and persons of
reputation and standing were accused of com-
plicity. The effect of the popular panic, which
rendered impossible the calm weighing of evidence
and extinguished any sense of proportion, is seen
in the letters of Governor George Clarke. On
June 20,1741, he writes to the Lords of Trade as
follows:

The fatal fire that consumed the buildings in the fort
and great part of my substance (for my loss is not less
than two thousand pounds), did not happen by acci-
dent as I at first apprehended, but was'kindled by
design, in the execution of a horrid Conspiracy to burn
it and the whole town, and to Massacre the people; as
appears evidently not only by the Confession of the
Negro who set fire to it, in some part of the same gutter
where the Plumber was to work, but also by the testi-
mony of several witnesses. How many Conspirators
there were we do not yet know; every day produces new
discoveries, and I apprehend that in the town, if the
truth were known, there are not many innocent Negro
men. ... I do myself the honor to send your Lord-
ships the minutes taken at the tryal of Quack who
burned the fort, and of another Negro, who was tryed
with him, and their confession at the stake; with some
examinations, whereby your Lordships will see their
designs; it was ridiculous to suppose that they could
keep possession of the town, if they had destroyed the
white people, yet the mischief they would have done in
pursuit of their intention would nevertheless have been