started.  Eight transports, with eight hundred and sixty men, perished amid the treacherous rocks and angry waters of the St. Lawrence.  The troops that had gone overland returned in chagrin.  The city was wrapped in gloom:  the Legislature refused to do any thing further; and here the dreams of conquest vanished.  The city of New York was thrown on the defensive.  The forts were repaired, and every thing put in readiness for an emergency.  Like a sick man the colonists started at every rumor.  On account of bad faith the Iroquois were disposed to mischief.

In the feeble condition of the colonial government, the Negro grew restless.  At the first, as previously shown, the slaves were very few, but now, in 1712, were quite numerous.  The Negro, the Quaker, and the Papist were a trinity of evils that the colonists most dreaded.  The Negro had been badly treated; and an attempt on his part to cast off the yoke was not improbable, in the mind of the master-class.  The fears of the colonists were at length realized.  A Negro riot broke out.  A house was burned, and a number of white persons killed; and, had it not been for the prompt and efficient aid of the troops, the city of New York would have been reduced to ashes.

Now, what was the condition of the slaves in the Christian colony of New York?  They had no family relations:  for a long time they lived together by common consent.  They had no property, no schools, and, neglected in life, were abandoned to burial in a common ditch after death.  They dared not lift their hand to strike a Christian or a Jew.  Their testimony was excluded by the courts, and the power of their masters over their bodies extended sometimes to life and limb.  This condition of affairs yielded its bitter fruit at length.

“Here we see the effects of that blind and wicked policy which induced England to pamper her merchants and increase her revenues, by positive instructions to the governours of her colonies, strictly enjoining them (for the good of the African company, and for the emoluments expected from the assiento contract), to fix upon America a vast negro population, torn from their homes and brought hither by force.  New York was at this time filled with negroes; every householder who could afford to keep servants, was surrounded by blacks, some pampered in indolence, all carefully kept in ignorance, and considered, erroneously, as creatures whom the white could not do without, yet lived in dread of.  They were feared, from their numbers, and from a consciousness, however stifled, that they were injured and might seek revenge or a better condition."[240]

The Negro plot of 1741 furnishes the most interesting and thrilling chapter in the history of the colony of New York.  Unfortunately for the truth of history, there was but one historian[241] of the affair, and he an interested judge; and what he has written should be taken cum grano salis.  His book was