_9th July, 1822._—_JACK, a slave, belonging to Paul Pritchard,
commonly called GULLAH JACK, and sometimes COUTER JACK, was brought
up, and, sentence pronounced by_ L. H. KENNEDY, _Presiding
Magistrate_.
JACK PRITCHARD—The Court, after deliberately considering all the
circumstances of your case, are perfectly satisfied of your guilt. In
the prosecution of your wicked designs, you were not satisfied with
resorting to natural and ordinary means, but endeavored to enlist on
your behalf, all the powers of darkness, and employed for that purpose,
the most disgusting mummery and superstition. You represented yourself
as invulnerable; that you could neither be taken nor destroyed, and that
all who fought under your banners would be invincible. While such
wretched expedients are calculated to _inspire_ the confidence, or to
alarm the fears of the ignorant and credulous, they excite no other
emotion in the mind of the intelligent and enlightened, but contempt and
disgust. Your boasted Charms have not preserved yourself, and of course
could not protect others. “Your Altars and your Gods have sunk together
in the dust.” The airy spectres, conjured by you, have been chased away
by the superior light of Truth, and you stand exposed, the miserable and
deluded victim of offended Justice. Your days are literally numbered.
You will shortly be consigned to the cold and silent grave, and all the
Powers of Darkness cannot rescue you from your approaching Fate! Let me
then, conjure you to devote the remnant of your miserable existence in
fleeing from the “_wrath to come_.” This can only be done by a full
disclosure of the truth. The Court are willing to afford you all the aid
in their power, and to permit any Minister of the Gospel, whom you may
select to have free access to you. To him you may unburthen your guilty
conscience. Neglect not the opportunity, for there is “no device nor art
beyond the tomb,” to which you must shortly be consigned.
SENTENCE _pronounced on DICK, BACCHUS, WILLIAM, NAPHUR, ADAM,
BELLISLE, CHARLES, JEREMY and DEAN, by L. H. KENNEDY, Esq. PRESIDING
MAGISTRATE._
The Court, on mature deliberation, have pronounced you guilty; the
punishment of that guilt is DEATH. Your conduct, on the present
occasion, exhibits a degree of depravity and extravagance, rarely
paralleled. Your professed objects were to trample, not only on the laws
of this state, but on those of humanity; to commit murder, outrage and
plunder, and to substitute for the blessings we enjoy, anarchy and
confusion in their most odious forms.—The beauties of nature and of art,
would have fallen victims to your relentless fury; and even the
decrepitude of age and the innocence of childhood would have found no
other refuge than the grave!
Surely, nothing but infatuation could have prompted you to enter into a
plot so wild and diabolical. A moment’s reflection would have convinced
you, that disgrace and ruin must have been its consequence, and that it
would have probably resulted in the destruction and extermination of
_your race_. But if, even complete success had crowned your efforts,
what were the golden visions which you anticipated? Such men as you,
are, in general, as ignorant as you are vicious, without any settled
principles, and possessing but few of the virtues of civilized life;—you
would soon, therefore, have degenerated into a horde of barbarians,
incapable of any government. But, admitting that a different result
might have taken place, it is natural to inquire, what are the miseries
of which you complain? That we should all earn our bread by the sweat of
our brow, is the decree which God pronounced at the fall of man. It
extended alike to the master and the slave; to the cottage and the
throne. Every one is more or less subject to control; and the most
exalted, as well as the humblest individual, must bow with deference to
the laws of that community, in which he is placed by Providence. Your
situation, therefore, was neither extraordinary nor unnatural. Servitude
has existed under various forms, from the Deluge to the present time,
and in no age or country has the condition of slaves been milder or more
humane, than your own. You are, with few exceptions, treated with
kindness, and enjoy every comfort compatible with your situation. You
are exempt from many of the miseries, to which _the poor_ are subject
throughout the world. In many countries the life of the slave is at the
disposal of his master; here you have always been under the protection
of the law.
The tribunal which now imposes this sentence, through its humble organ,
affords a strong exemplification of the truth of these remarks. In the
discharge of the painful duties which have devolved on them, the members
of this Court have been as anxious to acquit the innocent as determined
to condemn the guilty.
In addition to the crime of treason, you have on the present occasion,
displayed the vilest ingratitude. It is a melancholy truth that those
servants in whom was reposed the most unlimited confidence, have been
the principal actors in this wicked scheme. Reared by the hand of
kindness, and fostered by a master who assumed many of the duties of a
parent, you have realized the fable of the Frozen Serpent, and attempted
to destroy the bosom that sheltered and protected you.
You have, moreover, committed the grossest impiety: you have perverted
the sacred words of God, and attempted to torture them into a sanction
for crimes, at the bare imagination of which, humanity shudders. Are you
incapable of the Heavenly influence of that Gospel, all whose “paths are
Peace?” It was to reconcile us to our destiny on earth, and to enable us
to discharge with fidelity all our duties, whether as master or servant,
that those inspired precepts were imparted by Heaven to fallen man.
There is no condition of life which is not embraced by them: and if you
had searched them, _in the spirit of truth_, you would have discovered
instructions peculiarly applicable to yourselves—“_Servants_ (says St.
Paul) _be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the
flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto
Christ: not with eye-service as men pleasers, but as the servants of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart._” Had you listened with
sincerity to such doctrines, you would not have been arrested by an
ignominious death.
Your days on earth are near their close and you now stand upon the
confines of eternity. While you linger on this side of the grave, permit
me to exhort you, in the name of the ever-living God, whose holy
ordinances you have violated, to devote most earnestly the remnant of
your days, in penitence and preparation for that Tribunal, whose
sentence, whether pronounced in anger or in mercy, is eternal.
_The above Sentences is selected out of the many passed on this
occasion, with a view, to give the reader a general idea of them._