Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury,

August 29 and 30, 1831

[August 29]

        We take this mode to acknowledge the receipt of a letter from North Carolina on a subject highly important and interesting not only to the people of this city, but of the whole Southern country. We thank the writer for his polite attention. The information communicated has been disposed of in the manner which we deem best calculated to answer his humane and philanthropic purpose.

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[August 30]

        We acknowledge the receipt of a second letter from our North Carolina correspondent, upon the very painful and revolting subject at which we hinted yesterday. We again thank him for his kindness, and for the trouble he has taken to communicate detailed and accurate information. We cannot publish his letters, nor anything indeed relating to their subject matter, for very obvious reasons; but we shall use them in the only effective way in which they can be used, and we trust that he will continue to oblige us by imparting all such additional information as it may be in his power to afford.

Eric Foner, editor, Nat Turner (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971), 65.