prisoner without his knowing it, and what had seemed to him a playful freak of romping soldiers proved to be in the end his death-warrant. As to Guey, the eighth and last of the plotters, M. Le Page caused him to be put in irons in the course of the day; and after dark the seven prisoners were sent to New Orleans. They were met at the landing, at the foot of the Rue du Corps-de-Garde, by the officer of the guard and eight musketeers, and were conducted to prison. During these proceedings the Governor, the Criminal-Lieutenant and all the officers of the post were at the Government House, in readiness for any emergency. But so carefully had the details of the secret arrest of the leaders of the plot been carried out, that none of the population, either black or white, knew of what had happened, except the few who were aware of what was to be done.

The next day the prisoners were put to the torture of what was called the mèches ardentes to extort from them a confession. They would say nothing, however, to implicate themselves, notwithstanding the torture was applied to them several times.

While the prisoners were thus suffering at the hands of the authorities, M. Le Page was investigating the history of some of the plotters. In this way he learned that Zamba, in his own country, had given the French a good deal of trouble in heading a revolt that had driven away the French from Fort d'Arguin, and that when this fort was recovered by M. Périer de Salvert (a brother of Governor Périer), one of the principal articles of the treaty that followed was that Zamba should be sold into slavery in America. He also learned that Zamba, while on his way to Louisiana on board the ship Annibal, had plotted with others of his race aboard to kill the ship's officers and crew; but the latter, becoming aware of this, had put them all in irons until the arrival of the vessel at New Orleans.

The facts thus developed regarding Zamba were set forth by M. Le Page in a statement which he submitted to the Criminal-Lieutenant. The next day this functionary had Zamba brought before him. He read to him. M. Le Page's statement, again threatening him with the torture of the mèches ardentes in case of a refusal to confess.

"Qui mouri dit vous ça ?" (Who told you that?) asked Zamba when the Criminal-Lieutenant had read the statement to him.

"Never mind who told me of these things," replied the officer. "Are they not true?"

Zamba, however, persisted in asking him for his source of information. Finally he was told that it was M. Le Page.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "Miché Li Page-li djabe!" (Ah! M. Le Page is the devil!) "Li connait tout!" (He knows everything!)

Having thus admitted tacitly the truth of the accusations against him, Zamba made a clean breast of the plot in all its ramifications. The other prisoners were then brought forward, and they in their turn confessed. Thereupon sentence was passed upon them. The men were condemned to be broken on the wheel, and the woman was sentenced to be hanged in their presence. They were executed in the public square of the city— afterward called the Place d'Armes, and now known as Jackson Squarewhere in the colonial days all the executions took place. With their death the alarm and perturbation of spirit that the plot had caused passed away. Some evidence of the extent of this plot may be obtained from the pages of "Martin's History of Louisiana." After describing how emissaries had been sent from the negroes who, after the Natchez massacre, had taken refuge among the Chickasaws, to those of their race in Mobile, New Orleans, and along the coast, urging them to rise against the French, the author continues:

"On the plantation opposite the city, lately the property of the Company, but now of the King, there were upward of two hundred and fifty hands. Several of these were seduced, and the contagion spread with considerable rapidity up the coast, where, in the vicinity of the city, there were some estates with gangs of from thirty to forty slaves. Meetings were held without the notice of the French, the blacks improving the opportunity, unsuspectingly furnished them by their owners, to assemble in nightly parties for dancing and recreation.

"At last, a night was fixed on, in which, on pretexts like these, the blacks of the upper plantations were to collect on those near the city, at one time, but on various points, and entering it from all sides, they were to destroy all white men, and securing and confining the women and children in the church, expecting to possess themselves of the King's arms and magazine, and thus have the means of resisting the planters when they came down, and carrying on conflagration and slaughter on the coast. * * * Fortunately, the motions of an incautious fellow were noticed by a negro woman, belonging to a Dr. Brasset; she gave such information to her master as led to the discovery of the plot. Four men and a woman, who were the principal agents in it, were detected and seized. The men were broken on the wheel, and their heads stuck on posts at the upper and lower end of the city, the Tchoupitoulas and the King's plantation: the woman was hung. This timely severity prevented the mischief."

"TOM THE TINKER" IN HISTORY

The aim of this paper is to avoid theorizing upon the tariff question. The public are sated with that mode of treatment. It is proposed to briefly exhibit the continual changes in tariff legislation which have occurred since the formation of the government, and to indicate what kind of protection it was that statesmen and thinkers supported during various national crises. Although the great crime of nullification or secession cannot be palliated, and although the Southern people may have desired by the establishment of free trade to supply their slaves with cheap clothing and cheap food-to make free trade, in short, a prop beneath the tottering institution of slavery-still it may be suggested that burying their motives and forgetting their act, their leaders did advance some telling arguments against the "American system." The further attempt is here made to group some historical facts and present them in unassuming sequence, demonstrating that protection, gauged by the light of events and common sense, cannot be called a " system "—since the tariff laws have been changed on an average once in every three years from the meeting of the first Congress of the United States. It cannot be proved that when protection has been the highest the prosperity of the country has always been at the lowest ebb; for neither protection nor free trade can alone decide a country's condition, but rather a happy combination of such forces as public and private confidence, bountiful crops, good and plentiful money, widely extended and cheap transportation facilities, and a sufficient and steady demand for home products and manufactures. Several of these elements combined may produce "good times" in spite of high protective duties or pure free trade; if several of them are missing, neither policy might bring prosperity; if all of them are absent, neither of them possibly could.

The first Congress under the constitution met at New York City, March 4, 1789. For twenty-five days the House of Representatives was without a quorum, and the Senate failed to organize for twenty-nine days. Finally on the 11th of April, the Chief Justice administered the oaths of office in the Lower House; but before the rules of order had been perfected and while the solemn measure was pending "to regulate the appointment of chaplains," a species of legislation was rudely precipitated upon the country which has vexed it ever since and at times well nigh ruined it as a nation. The first action ever taken by Congress in response

to a direct request of the people was upon a petition of the tradesmen, manufacturers and others of the town of Baltimore, "praying an imposition of such duties on all foreign articles which can be made in America, as will give a just and decided preference to the labors of the petitioners; and that there may be granted to them, in common with the other manufacturers and mechanics of the United States, such relief as in the wisdom of Congress may appear proper." The petition was referred to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union. On the 13th the shipwrights of Charleston stated that they were in great distress and prayed to be protected. The mechanics and manufacturers of the city of New York represented, on the 18th inst., that their affairs were also in a deplorable state. They looked with confidence to the operations of the new government for entire relief, and subjoined a list of such articles as could be manufactured in the State of New York. The Committee of the Whole House soon reported, presenting a schedule of duties to be imposed upon goods imported into the United States and a heavy tax upon foreign vessels. The printer's ink was hardly dry before complaints commenced to pour into Congressional ears from the various interests which the government would protect. The merchants and traders of Portland, Maine, asserted that the duty on molasses operated injuriously on all the New England States, would be attended with pernicious results to their manufactures, and prayed that this article should be free. The distillers in and near Philadelphia suggested that a greater difference in the proposed duties on imported rum and molasses would be of advantage to the whole United States. Thus the clash of conflicting interests was already heard and the "tinkering" of the tariff had been inaugurated. Commerce, agriculture and manufactures, puny sisters in distress, all 'lifted up their voices and begged to be cared for by government. This first tariff bill, which would now be considered "pure free trade," received the signature of President Washington on the Fourth of July, 1789, and was the second act approved by him. It is such a bill as might have been expected at a time when Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury and Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State, and neither had a preponderance of influence in the nation's councils. And thus it happened, for a brief period, that the fatherly and benign nature of Washington was grounded upon the blessed belief that equal protection to all industries had become the settled

*

* See the following from Washington's first annual address of January 8, 1790: "The advancement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation; but I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encour agement, as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions in skill and genius in producing them at home."

policy of the country and that she had bravely and generously resolved to welcome to her young bosom the skill and genius of the world. But the pressure of just Revolutionary claims and the expenses of the Indian campaign were causes of serious embarrassment to an almost empty treasury, and notwithstanding the unqualified attitude previously assumed by Mr. Hamilton a foolish attempt was made by the General Government at direct taxation and the enforcement of an excise law. The result was the revolution which extended over a large portion of the then western United States and threatened in 1794 to disrupt the nation. The rebels took the name of "Tom the Tinker's" party, and although subdued, their spirit passed into the souls of many legislators, who, in after years, strove after the impossibility of patching up an artificial system of protection which should satisfy the most diverse interests.

The Jay treaty brought about a better feeling between Great Britain and the United States, and it is also certain that the degree of firmness with which amity was cemented between these two countries determined the extent of the rupture between America and France. When John Adams took the reins of government from President Washington, in 1797, war seemed inevitable, and his policy, as announced in his inaugural address of March, was to "improve agriculture, commerce and manufactures for necessity, convenience and defense." But France had too much to attend to at home to give us serious trouble, and with the establishment of a formal peace and the fall of the Federal Administration, Jeffersonian ideas succeeded the Hamiltonian reign. The leader of the Republican party cast aside all the trappings of aristocracy which so fittingly adorned the serene and dignified administration of Washington, and declared war against high taxes in times of peace. "Sound principles," he said in his annual address of December, 1801, "will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen, we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen but from the temptation offered by that treasure." 'Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are most thriving when left free to individual enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes be seasonably interposed."

* * * 66

The peace brought about by the Jay treaty expired by limitation in 1802, and remembering the conflict between France and England, the Embargo act of this country, retaliatory measures by Great Britain, and the oppressions of our commerce by both the belligerents, there was no period from that time up to the actual declaration of the War of 1812 * Alexander Hamilton "Concerning Taxation" in "Federalist," No. XII.