On the 25th of May a large number of Negroes were arrested.  The boy referred to above (whose name was Sawney, or Sandy) was called to the stand again on the 26th, when he grew very talkative.  He said that “at a meeting of Negroes he was called in and frightened into undertaking to burn the slip Market;” that he witnessed some of the Negroes in their attempts to burn certain houses; that at the house of one Comfort, he, with others, was sworn to secrecy and fidelity to each other; said he was never at either tavern, Hughson’s nor Romme’s; and ended his revelations by accusing a woman of setting fire to a house, and of murdering her child.  As usual, after such confessions, more arrests followed.  Quack and Cuffee were tried and convicted of felony, “for wickedly and maliciously conspiring with others to burn the town and murder the inhabitants.”  This was an occasion to draw forth the eloquence of the attorney-general; and in fervid utterance he pictured the Negroes as “monsters, devils, etc.”  A Mr. Rosevelt, the master of Quack, swore that his slave was home when the fire took place in the fort; and Mr. Phillipse, Cuffee’s master, testified as much for his servant.  But this testimony was not what the magistrates wanted:  so they put a soldier on the stand who swore that Quack did come to the fort the day of the fire; that his wife lived there, and when he insisted on going in he (the sentry) knocked him down, but the officer of the guard passed him in.  Lawyer Smith, “whose eloquence had disfranchised the Jews,” was called upon to sum up.  He thought too much favor had been shown the Negroes, in that they had been accorded a trial as if they were freemen; that the wicked Negroes might have been proceeded against in a most summary manner; that the Negro witnesses had been treated with too much consideration; that “the law requires no oath to be administered to them; and, indeed, it would be a profanation of it to administer it to a heathen in a legal form;” that “the monstrous ingratitude of this black tribe is what exceedingly aggravates their guilt;” that their condition as slaves was one of happiness and peace; that “they live without care; are commonly better fed and clothed than the poor of most Christian countries; they are indeed slaves,” continued the eloquent and logical attorney, “but under the protection of the law:  none can hurt them with impunity; but notwithstanding all the kindness and tenderness with which they have been treated among us, yet this is the second attempt of this same kind that this brutish and bloody species of mankind have made within one age!” Of course the jury knew their duty, and merely went through the form of going out and coming in immediately with a verdict of “guilty.”  The judge sentenced them to be chained to a stake and burnt to death,—­“and the Lord have mercy upon your poor wretched souls.”  His Honor told them that “they should be thankful that their feet were caught in the net; that the mischief had fallen upon their own pates.”  He advised them to consider the tenderness and humanity with which they had been treated; that they were the most abject wretches, the very outcasts of the nations of the earth; and, therefore, they should look to their souls, for as to their bodies, they would be burnt.