I'm most grateful to Philip Schwarz for the very ample quoting of his own
notes - I had in fact looked in _Twice Condemned_ but did not perceive that
the case mentioned might have been the instigation of the New York report of
April 1813. The account makes a good illumination of slaves' attempts to
gain their freedom. In fact, the first group to make their escape consisted
of nine who boarded HMS Victorious on 10 March, and there were no more until
24 and 27 April, when another fifteen came out to the same ship, still
anchored in Lynhaven Bay. This is not the only story of American and British
ships being mistaken for each other - later in the war, an American came
aboard a British ship thinking it was American, and managed to divulge
useful information as to the deployment of militia before realising his
mistake. (This raises a completely different kind of question - what about
differences in accent at that time? A simple answer once give me was that
"foreign" ships from the north - i.e. New England - were common in the
Chesapeake, and an English accent would have been no stranger than a New
England one . . . )

Several connected points come to mind. The first is the projected size of
the potential uprising. I expressed doubts in my original posting that two
thousand slaves could have gathered so easily around Hampton without early
discovery, but I see that the site of the event was Burwell's Ferry in James
City County, and I wonder if the density of population, and hence the
closeness, could have been greater there? On the other hand, if the refugees
really though they could gather several hundred, it would have been natural
to say one or two thousand, and in any case reports of Gabriel's rebellion
must have been fresh in people's minds. The British suffered later in the
war from over-estimating the number of slaves that could make it to British
positions, depending in part on refugees' estimates.

The second point, in which the petitioners seem to have been more than
generous towards the prisoners, is whether they really had murderous intent,
or was it just bravado, saying what they thought their listeners wanted to
hear, and being egged on in a classic entrapment? In the following year,
with the arrival of a new British commander in chief, Sir Alexander
Cochrane, the younger and more aggressive refugees were in fact recruited
into a fighting force under British management and control - the Corps of
Colonial Marines - and even if only a few had murderous intent as such,
several hundred volunteered to bear arms against their ex-masters. The size
of the petitioning group surprises me, but I sense a whiff of Virginians
reacting against intrusion in their affairs by someone who was "not a
resident".

My last point has some bearing on my attempts to catalogue all the refugees.
In essence, I have tried to match references in slaveholders' compensation
claims with references on British ships' musters, but the matching is
difficult for a number of disconnected reasons. The fact that some of the
trial prisoners had been on the run for a while, and from a slaveholder who
was absent through being of unsound mind,  adds weight to my conclusion that
some or many of the refugees appearing on British ships were either free men
or runaways of long standing or escaping from slaveholders who for one
reason or another were unable or unwilling to pursue a claim. When the scene
moves south to Georgia, it's quite likely that some of the refugees had been
imported illegally, and it would have been unwise for a claim to be
entered - but had there been any illegal importation into Virginia in the
years before the War of 1812 - into a State that was a net exporter of
slaves by then?

And (almost) finally, I'm also grateful for being pointed, indirectly, to
Philip Schwarz's reference in his book to Frank Cassell's mention of
insurrection trials in his 1972 article "Slaves of the Chesapeake Bay Area
and the War of 1812", which I saw very early in my research, have not read
again for a long time, and is now evidently overdue for a new perusal.

Philip Schwarz's final comment about the incident making a good case study
of an insurrection scare adds greatly to my assertion that when the British
made use of what they perceived to be an American fear that the British
could (and would) incite slave insurrection, they were correct in believing
the American had a current fear of insurrection that was fed by real
incidents, however small.

John Weiss

----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Schwarz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: VA-HIST Digest - 24 Jul 2003 to 25 Jul 2003 (#2003-116)


: Re: Rumored insurrection near Hampton, early 1813
:
: I've finally been able to check my _Twice Condemned _ notes concerning Mr.
: Weiss's query. I have a reasonably good match to the description he
mentions.
: It's an insurrection scare, March 1813, related to a British ship.
:
: Auditor's Item 153, box 3, Library of Virginia, verifies the sentence of
: transportation. Each man was valued at $400.
:
: Notes concerning the trials are in Virginia Executive Papers, Letters
Received,
: box 185, at March 31, 1813--Library of Virginia.
:
: Below are my aged notes on the trials. I've supplied these notes partly to
: respond to Mr. Weiss, but also because the incident makes a good case
study of
: an insurrection scare.
:
:      March 31, 1813, James City County Court of Oyer and Terminer trials
of
:      Anthony Tapsey [or Tapsy], and Kit, owned by Lucy Ludwell Paradise of
:      Williamsburg. Witness William Jennings testified that on March 23rd,
3
:      a.m., he was on a ship at Burwells Ferry, James City County. He was
:      roused by a dog barking and by the ship's "centinel," who told
:      officers that a boat was coming alongside. The boat's passengers were
:      hailed and asked if they wanted to come on board. The men in the boat
:      asked if it was an English ship and the mate said it was. They came
on
:      board. When witness discovered they were not British enemies, he went
:      below. The next day witness learned by questioning the accused that
:      they were pleased we were English, "the mate having deceived them in
:      telling them so." We asked them who their master was. Mrs. Lucy
:      Paradise. We asked them if they would fight the Americans and they
:      said yes. We brought them two swords or cutlasses to find out whether
:      any of them had serious intentions to hurt anyone: "they ground [the
:      swords] very sharp and declared their overseer was the first they
:      intended to kill and all Americans they could catch . . . [and] if
:      they could get on shore and be joined by the British they would
engage
:      to get from one to two thousand other negroes to join them, in
killing
:      the Americans."
:
:      "The petition of sundry persons, Inhabitants of the city of
:      Williamsburg, and of the Counties of James City and York, on behalf
of
:      Kit, Anthony, and Tasey." The signatories included a committing
:      magistrate and four sitting court members. Total signatories: 98,
:      including William Waller, Wilson Miles Cary, and Littleton Tazewell.
:      They complained that the men were convicted on the basis of one man's
:      testimony. We know nothing about him because he is not a resident.
:      Those who heard the trial thought the witness was biased against the
:      slaves. We think the offenders were "completely entrap[p]ed by the
:      witnesses and others on board the vessel; who from their ignorance of
:      words perhaps, and by leading questions which were put to them, were
:      induced to say, what they never designed to execute; and what is more
:      than probable, they would never have thought of; had the subject, not
:      been first mentioned to them." They might have been trying to ensure
:      good treatment of them aboard the ship. Some of them had been
runaways
:      for several months before "from some disagreement between themselves
:      and their overseer," and that in order to get out of the weather and
:      their situation had boarded what they thought was a British vessel to
:      escape from the U.S. "and so gain their liberty." Please at least
:      transport them if that protects the public safety. We especially
:      petition that Tapsey be transported: he is young and according to his
:      overseer is "well disposed" and probably was led along by the others.
:
: A certificate is attached to the trial record to indicate that Lucy
Ludwell
: Paradise, the three accused men's owner, had been committed to the
Williamsburg
: Hospital, January 1812, as being of unsound mind. William McCandlish was
the
: estate manager.

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