Six of these killed themselves to escape capture; but
when the woods were beaten and the town searched next day and an emergency
court sat upon the cases, more captives were capitally sentenced than the
whole conspiracy had comprised. The prosecuting officer, indeed, hounded
one of the prisoners through three trials, to win a final conviction after
two acquittals. The maxim that no one may twice be put in jeopardy for the
same offense evidently did not apply to slaves in that colony. Of those
convicted one was broken on the wheel, another hanged alive in chains;
nineteen more were executed on the gallows or at the stake, one of these
being sentenced "to be burned with a slow fire, that he may continue in
torment for eight or ten hours and continue burning in said fire until he
be dead and consumed to ashes"; and several others were saved only by the
royal governor's reprieve and the queen's eventual pardon. Such animosity
was exhibited by the citizens toward the "catechetical school" that for
some time its teacher hardly dared show himself on the streets. The furor
gradually subsided, however, and Mr. Neau continued his work for a dozen
years longer, and others carried it on after his death.
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