They passed the day, until late in the afternoon, in this work of carnage, and numberless were the victims of their rage. The population in this country is not dense, and, rapidly as the alarm spread, it was impossible for some time to collect a sufficient number to make a defence. Every family was entirely at the mercy of its own slaves. It is impossible to conceive of more distressing circumstances of apprehension. It is said that most of the insurgent slaves belonged to kind and indulgent masters, and consequently no one felt secure. Late in the afternoon, a small party of whites, well armed, collected at a plantation for defence. The slaves came on in large numbers, and, emboldened by success, they at first drove back the whites. The slaves pressed on, thirsting for blood, and shouting with triumphant fury as the whites slowly retreated, apparently destined to be butchered, with their wives and children. Just at this awful moment a reinforcement of troops arrived, which turned the tide of victory and dispersed the slaves. Exhausted with the horrible labors of the day, the insurgents retired to the woods and marshes to pass the night. Early the next morning they commenced their work again. But the first plantation they attacked--that of Dr. Blount--they were driven from by the slaves, who rallied around their master, and fearlessly hazarded their lives in his defence. By this time the whites were collected in sufficient force to bar their further progress. The fugitives were scattered over the country in small parties, but every point was defended, and wherever they appeared they were routed, shot, taken prisoners, and the insurrection quelled. The leader, Nat Turner, for a few weeks succeeded in concealing himself in a cave in Southampton county, near the theatre of his bloody exploits; but was finally taken, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law. To describe the state of alarm to which this outbreak gave rise is impossible. Whole States were agitated; every plantation was the object of fear and suspicion; free negroes and slaves underwent the most rigid examination; armed bodies of men were held in constant readiness for any emergency which might arise; every slave who had participated in the insurrection was either shot or hung, and for months the entire South remained in a fever of excitement. All this time the abolition journals of the North were singing their hallelujahs over the event. They circulated through the South then much more freely than at present, and the following extract was read from one of these by a gentleman to his terrified family, in the presence of the gentleman from whom the above particulars were derived:--