Animated by the example and exhortations of their leader, having a taste of blood and convinced that they had now gone too far to recede, his followers dismissed their doubts and became as ferocious as their leader wished them. Having called upon two others to make good their valiant boasting, so often repeated, of what they would do, and these shrinking from the requisition, Nat proceeded to dispatch one of the family with his own hand. According to the evidence of a negro boy whom they carried along to hold their horses, Nat commenced the scene of murder at the first house (Travis’) with his own hand. The origin of the conspiracy, the prime agents, its extent and ultimate direction, is matter of conjecture.-The universal opinion in that part of the country is that Nat, a slave, a preacher, and a pretended prophet was the first, the actual leader, and the most remorseless of the executioners. We have little to say of the Southampton Tragedy beyond what is already known. While truth is always the best policy, and best remedy, the exaggerations to which we have alluded are calculated to give the slaves false conceptions of their numbers and capacity, by exhibiting the terror and confusion of the whites, and to induce them to think that practicable, which they see is so much feared by their superiors. Editors seem to have applied themselves to the task of alarming the public mind as much as possible by persuading the slaves to entertain a high opinion of their strength and consequences. Harrison’s Troop of Horse) in reading over the mass of exchange papers accumulated in our absence, to see the number of false, absurd, and idle rumors, circulated by the Press, touching the insurrection in that country. We have been astonished since our return from Southampton (whither we went with Capt. Pleasants went on to die in 1846 in a duel with rival newspaper editor Thomas Ritchie of the Richmond Enquirer. This report from Southampton County was written by the founder and editor of the Richmond Whig, John Hampden Pleasants.
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