acter being generally known, led to his arrest on the 1st of July. But Saunders having left town, and no evidence being offered at his examination sufficient to justify the citizens in detaining him, he was by their order discharged.* Immediately after his dismission he returned to the house of his father-in-law, whither he had removed with his family a few days prior to the discovery of the insurrection. Saunders, in the meantime, was making off, as he said, for Texas. He informed a gentleman on his way to Vicksburg, that a discovery of a conspiracy of negroes was made in Madison county, and disclosed to him all their plans, as subsequently developed, in the course of the investigations of the committee at Livingston, and said that Cotton wanted him to join them, but he would not. likewise stated that it was the intention of the conspirators, should some one of the clan fail to rob one of the partners of the commission house of Ewing, Maddux, & Co., who was then on his way from New-Orleans to Livingston, to rob their house at Livingston. This part of their plan was to be attended to by Cotton and Blake. The gentleman, believing Saunders to be one of the conspirators, had him arrested and delivered into the hands of the Livingston guard, who were in search of him, and he was brought back to Livingston on the 2d of July.

He

On the strength of Saunders's confessions Cotton was again arrested, and he brought back to Livingston on the same evening.

Immediately after the organization of the committee, he was brought before them for trial.

Doctor William Saunders, under oath, confirmed his statements made before the meeting on the 30th June;

* He was not liked by the citizens of Livingston, with whom he had no social intercourse. In his business transactions he had been detected in many low tricks, and attempts to swindle. It was in evidence before the committee, that he had left Memphis, Tennessee (soon after the conviction of the celebrated Murrell), with a wife and child, who were never afterward heard of. As an evidence of his want of feeling and affection for his second wife, Saunders stated to the committee that he, Cotton, had made a proposition to him to take Cotton's second wife to Red river, in Arkansas, and there leave her, with the promise that Cotton would meet her as soon as he should settle his affairs in this country; at the same time informing Saunders that his object was to abandon her.

and that Cotton, and Boyd (who was supposed to be Cotton's brother), and some others, had been extensively engaged in negro-stealing; and that Cotton had contracted to purchase from a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Livingston a number of Spanish horses, but that he never completed the purchase; but always claimed them as his, and turned them loose in the country, as a pretext for hunting them, that he might have opportunities to converse with the negroes, and, by that means, seduce them from their allegiance to their owners, by instilling rebellious notions among them; and to form plans, and to make converts to his propositions, which he could not do by being a steamdoctor.

It was in evidence before the committee, in confirmation of Saunders's statement, that he was repeatedly seen skulking around the plantations in the neighbourhoods of Livingston, Vernon, and Beatie's Bluff: if asked what he was doing, his answer was, "hunting horses." A boy, after the execution of the negroes at Beatie's Bluff, was arrested in that neighbourhood on suspicion of being connected with the conspirators; although not knowing what the negroes had confessed, he acknowledged he knew something about the contemplated insurrection, and that he obtained his information from a white man in the neighbourhood of Beatie's Bluff. One day, while hunting horses in a prairie, the man, he said, told him he was hunting horses likewise, and soon began to question him respecting his master; if he was a bad man? whether they, the negroes, were whipped much? and asked how he would like to be free? and told him his plan for liberating the negroes, &c. (as will be seen hereafter, as developed in the course of the trial); said he took a drink of brandy with him, and made him drink first; he said he lived in Livingston, and that he must come and see him, and then he would tell him when the insurrection was to commence; he said he did not know his name, but thought he would know him if he could see him. This conversation took place about the last of May. The negro was brought to Livingston, ten miles from his home, on the morning of the 3d of July, for the purpose of finding out who the man was he had conversed with, if he should be in custody. Cotton, at the time the negro man was brought in town, was in

custody, but not chained. The negro man was introduced into a room where some six or seven men were chained, and requested to point him out; he looked at them all, and said the man was not among them; Cotton then being in the crowd, the company were requested to form a circle, in order that he might see all in the room. When he saw Cotton, he boldly pointed him out, and exclaimed, "That is the man who talked with me in the prairie." Cotton looked thunderstruck, and came near fainting on hearing the annunciation of the boy. The boy made the same statement to the committee in the presence of Cotton, which he did not deny.

The statement at length of Saunders, to the gentlemen previously noticed, was in evidence before the committee. That there was to have been an insurrection of the negroes on the night of the fourth of July, and that certain white men intended to head them. Cotton was considered one of the chief men, in connexion with Ruel Blake; and that operations were to be commenced first at Beatie's Bluff; and that Cotton intended to remain at Livingston, to attend to that place, and to secure the arms, ammunition, and money in both places, and then commence the work of murder, pillage, and fire; and from thence they were to go to Vernon, rob that town, and murder its inhabitants, and so on to Clinton and Jackson-arms being deposited at or near the Old Agency for their use in taking the latter place, robbing the bank, &c. Such were the declarations of Saunders before his arrest, which he neither could nor did deny before the committee on the third of July, but confirmed them by saying Cotton told him all when he requested him to join the clan; which statement of Saunders was made in the presence of Cotton.

On the 4th of July the confessions of the negroes hung at Beatie's Bluff were in evidence before the committee, as it was seen in the preceding report of the proceedings at Beatie's Bluff. Cotton was said to be one of the ringleaders in exciting them to insurrection.

After having much other corroborating testimony, the committee had Cotton removed from the committee-room, in order that they might deliberate on his

case.

Immediately after leaving the room, he exclaimed to

the guard, "It's all over with me!" All I wish is, that the committee will have me decently buried, and not suffer me to hang long after I am dead. "Great God!" was the exclamation of the by-standers-" Cotton, you do not know that you will be convicted?" He replied, despondingly," that the testimony was so strong against him that they must convict him-that they could not avoid it." Some said, "He must be a very guilty man to condemn himself; and, if he was guilty, he had better tell the truth; that it would be some atonement for his guilt to tell them who were his accomplices," there being a number of white men in custody at the time, in Livingston and elsewhere in the county. Cotton replied to their request by saying, “If the committee would pledge themselves not to have him hung immediately, he would come out and tell them all he knew about the conspiracy." The request of Cotton was communicated to the committee, who in answer said, through their chairman, "That they would not pledge themselves to extend any favour to him whatever; that they were satisfied as to his guilt, and that he might confess or not." In answer to the reply of the committee, Cotton sent word to them, "If they would hear what he had to say, he would make a confession;" and accordingly he made the following confession, which he signed and swore to.

Cotton's Confession.

I acknowledge my guilt, and I was one of the principal men in bringing about the conspiracy. I am one of the Murrell clan, a member of what we called the grand council. I counselled with them twice; once near Columbus, this spring,* and another time on an island in the Mississippi river. Our object in undertaking to excite the negroes to rebellion, was not for the purpose of liberating them, but for plunder. I was trying to carry into effect the plan of Murrell as laid down in Stewart's pamphlet.† Blake's boy, Peter, had his duty assigned him, which was, to let such negroes into the secret as he could trust, generally the most daring scoundrels; the negroes on most all the large planta

* He was absent from Livingston about three weeks in March; no person ever knew where he went to. † See ante, p. 53-60.

tions knew of it; and, from the exposure of our plans in said pamphlet, we expected the citizens would be on their guard at the time mentioned, being the 25th of December next; and we determined to take them by surprise, and try it on the night of the 4th of July, and it would have been tried to-night (and perhaps may yet), but for the detection of our plans.

All the names I now recollect who are deeply concerned, are Andrew Boyd, Albe Dean, William Saunders, two Rawsons, of Hinds county, who have a list of all the names of the men belonging to the Murrell clan in this state, being about one hundred and fifty; and the names of all who are connected with me in this conspiracy, being fifty-one. John and William Earl, near Vicksburg, in Warren county, Ruel Blake, of Madison county. I have heard Blake say he would make his negroes help, and he was equal in command with me. Lunsford Barnes, of this county; James Leach, near Woodville, Wilkinson county; Thomas Anderson, below Clinton, in Hinds county; John Rogers, near Benton, Yazoo county; Lee Smith, of Hinds county, and John Ivy, in Vernon.* There are arms and ammunition deposited in Hinds county, near Raymond. July 4, 1835. JOSHUA COTTON.

The committee, after receiving his confession, condemned him to be hanged in an hour after sentence, in order that the news of his execution might be circulated extensively before night, thinking it would frighten his accomplices from the undertaking.

After his condemnation, he made publicly some additional disclosures, which unfortunately were not re

*This man, whose name has been associated with so much villany, and so often mentioned in the preceding work, was implicated by Cotton as an accomplice of his in the late contemplated insurrection of the negroes in Madison, was in the neighbourhood of Livingston at the time of the discovery of the conspiracy. Having been released, as will be seen in the disclosures of the Earles, by their perjury, he was seen in a swamp near Livingston by a gentleman, who communicated the information to the citizens then assembled in Livingston, where they soon started him with track-dogs, and pursued him until it became so dark that the dogs could not be followed any longer; in the morning they resumed the chase; but, unfortunately, he escaped from the dogs by getting on to a horse he found in the woods, and has never been heard of since; having left a large family dependant upon charity for subsistence.