..."^n. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ^>. // A*^ ^ ^ <4^ 1.0 ^^ ta ut iiii 12.2 2? HA ■" s; 11° 12.0 "-'' 1^ 1^ Photographic Sdmces Carporation 31 WMT m.m trriY WIUTIR,N.Y. U'jM (7U) 173-4501 4^ ■■^^ '€^ (^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Instituta for Historical Microraproductions / Int'Jtut Canadian 6» microraproductions liiatoriquas Technical and Bibliographic Notaa/Notas tachniquaa at bibliographiquas Tha Instituta has attamptad to obtain tha bast original copy availabia for filming. Faaturas of this copy which may ba bibliographically uniqua, which may altar any of tha imagas in tha raproduction, or which may significantly changa tha usual mathod of filming, ara chackad balow. □ Colourad covars/ Couvartura da coulaur n Covars damaged/ Couvartura andommagAa I I c n D D D D Covars restorad and/or laminatad/ Couvartura rastaurte at/ou palliculAa □ Covar titia missing/ La titra da couvartura manqua I I Colourad maps/ Cartas giographiquas 9n coulaur Colourad ink (i.a. othar than blua or black)/ Encra da coulaur (i.a. autra qua blaua ou noira) I — I Colourad platas and/or illustrations/ Planchas at/ou illustrations an coulaur Bound with othar material/ RaliA avac d'autras documents Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin/ La re liura serria paut causer de I'ombrM ou de la distortion le long de la marge intirieure Blank leaves added during restoration may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming/ II se peut que certaines pages blanches aJoutAes lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans la texte, mais, lorsqua cela 4tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas At* filmAas. Additional comments:/ Commentaires supplAmentairas: L'Institut a microfilm* la mailleur exemplaira qu'il lui a it* possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exemplaira qui sont peut-*tre uniques du point de vue bibliographiqua, qui peuvent modifier una image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la mithoda normala de f ilmaga sont indiqute ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages/ D Pages de couleur Pages damaged/ Pages endommagias □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ Pages restaurias at/ou pallicul6es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d*color*es, tachaties ou piquias rn Pages detached/ Pages d*tach*as Showthroughy Transparence Quality of prir Qualit* inigaia de I'impression Includes supplementary materii Comprend du mat*riel suppUmentaire Only edition available/ Seule Adition disponible rrj Showthrough/ |~n Quality of priiit varies/ nn Includes supplementary material/ I — I Only edition available/ Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been ref limed to ensure the best possible image/ Les pages totalement ou partiallement obscurcies par un fauillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont *t* filmies k nouveau da fapon A obtenir la meiileure image possible. This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ Ce document est film* au taux de r*duction indlqu* ci-dessous. 10X 14X 1IX 22X MX 30X 12X 16X aox MX ax 32X T Th« copy filmed h«ro has bMn reproduced thanks to the generosity of: Library of the Pubiic Archives of Canada L'exempiaire fiimA fut reproduit grice A la gAnArositi da: La bibiiothdque des Archives pubiiques du Canada The imeges appearing here are the best quality possibld> considering the condition end legibility of tht 'original copy and in keeping with the fiiminii contrect s;>eciflcations. Original copies in printed peper covers are filmed beginning with the front cover and ending on the lest page with a printed or illustrated impree- sion, or the beck cover when appropriate. All other original copies ere filmed beginning on the first page with a printed or Illustrated Impree- sion. and ending on the last page with e primed or illustrated impression. The last recorded frame on eech microfiche shell contain the symbol -^> (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol ▼ (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely Included In one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hend corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrame illustrate the method: Lea images suivantes ont At6 reproduites avec ie plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at de la nettet* de l'exempiaire film6, et en conformity avec las conditions du contrat de fiimage. Lea exemplaires originsux dont la couverture en pepler est ImprimAe sent fiimAs en commenqant par la premier plat at en terminant soit par la derniire page qui comporte une empreinte d'Impression ou d'iliustration, soit par ie second plet, selon Ie ces. Tous les autres exemplaires orlglnaux sont fiimto en commen9ant par la premlAre pege qui comporte une empreinte d'Impression ou d'iilustrotion et en terminant par la derniAre pege qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivents apparaftra sur la darnlAre imege de cheque microfiche, selon Ie cas: Ie symbols — ► signifie "A 8UIVRE '. Ie symbols ▼ signifie "FIN". Les certes, planches, tebieeux, etc.. peuvent Atre filmAs A des taux de reduction diff Arents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour §tre reproduit en un seul ciichA, il est film* A partir de I'angle supArieur geuche, de gauche h droite, et de heut en bas. en prenent Ie nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivents illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 8 6 THE CRISIS OF •A^ J" / THB SUGAR COLONIES; OR, AN ENQUIRY INTO THl OBJECTS AND PROBABLE EFFECTS or THX iffrencft «;:peDitioti TO ♦ THE WEST INDIES ; . . And their Connection with the *~ COLONIAL INTEi^ESTS OF THE BRITISH EMPIR^. TO WHICH ARI tUBJOINID, SKETCHES OF ^ PL^JV ton lETTLINO THK VACANT LANDS OP TRINIDADA. IN FOUR LETTERS TO TKS Right Hon. HENRY ADDINGTON, CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, 4c. ioimoit: PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD, BookicUer to Her Majcity, No. 190, (Opposite York Houio,) Piccadillx. 1802. ''^K ^ %IA fe-.k J. r ^-Wi\ \j.' jL ^^. aTMHM M.la; r:>aiEO i. i \ A. ■I fn^ I i i I ',( I" r V' ..V-i/-' , In.-'^O^^ r-r.-Jcja--;-: ,♦, " A. 'b ^'T ^r t" k ': !i BaiTTtLL and BAttts, Priaterfi No. 64, Great WindoiU Su«et, HiyAuk* ABTEMTISEMENT. That the Reader may not suppose the general views of West India alfairs which are disclosed in these sheets to have been suggested or influenced by the news lately received from St. Domingo, it may be proper to apprise him that three of the Letters, and great part of the fourth, were printed before the Public was possessed of any intelligence respecting the arrival of the French Expedition at that Island. In fact this work was commenced very early in the year, and was nearly finished a month ago, though private avocations and other causes have till now unavoidably delayed its completion, and retarded it* progress through the press. March 27, 1808, Z^y^-^i' ^^M&^&j^ ^ \iJ. , ViiS^nA lM'imW ^m^aJiili^ ^ ■s>d1 >--'«^ 'l". Ji.jli 'i4lU •m- tMil 3d ^f k ■r*w^"ffhi;, i j|.rrfo riii'ff *'ia> gf.;!V :)Htli/*,^ KVirm f; .SfTifW^ t^ii j f ,. ik^iIIl . i • » .'r . ■■ny ■nlu^ ftmr^md. M J. :li :^i^4a ii^i'^ to:»,,^Tl07,.■;Kll* Vffl/i KjJ.il mm^fwt h -;'jft''">*'r'ir?'^ \ ■ Jij '■ik*>i/ .'K)ft I CONTENTS. ,\i<' LETTER I. ■'.'..;> ''V General preliminary reflections on the Peace. — Subjects of enquiry proposed. — For- -' mer slavery of the negroes in the French ^'Colonies defined and described. — Nature of ** the recent changes in their condition stated *V and proved. — Reasons assigned for believing that a restitution of the old slavery is the true object which the West India expedition is designed to accomplish. LETTER IL <^At The probable issue of the expedition as far as »* relates to the French Colonies enquired into.' \^ ^-Motives that will induce the negroes to ' resist. — Their means of resistance. — General difficulties of West India "war. — Their nature and causes explained.— ^Comparative advan- tages possessed by negro troops. — Means of repelling invasion arising from the face of the country ?•?■ V '■^ ' n \ country and the climate. — Difficulties of keep- ing the negroes in subjection if conquer ed^ and of restoring permanently the former system of bondage. LETTER III. The probable consequences of. the expedition more immediately affecting the interest of Great Britain in the fVest Indies considered. — ]stf Consequences of the total failure of the enterprise. — 2J, Those of a middle event or compromise ; or of' an immediate agree- ment on the basis of the liberty of the ne- groes. — 3dj Probable effects of the entire success of the supposed enterprise of the Re- public. — Dangers to which the British Islands will in either of these cases be exposed. LETTER IV. ^>W^H*& ^^ Measures that the prospects opened in the former letters should suggest. — A strict neutrality between France and her Colonies recom- ' mended. — Means of defence that ought to be prepared in our West India Islands.-^ftight ^^ of Parliament to make laws for the govern- ment of the Colonies considered.— Thovghts ON THE MEANS OF SETTLING TrINIDADA. — The vacant lands ought not to be settled by means qf slavery and the Slave Trade.-pfhe sale [ vii ] sale of the Cr&ivn lands ought at least to Be deferred. — Moral viezv of the question of opening a new slave Colony after the resolu- tions of the House of Commons in 1792. — Innocent uses that may be made of this Island. — Its commercial advantages. — The practicability of cultivating the uncleared lands by the labour of free negroes. — General suggestions on that head. — Conclusion ^ i Hi'. ?yk^. •i^vi:^>\'- ^^M, I f" 'tyv^' TO THg --!« -ff- ^»n:^•^ te*. ,4 RIGHT HONOURABLE HENMY ABBINGTON, Sir, i^ STRANGER solicits your at- tention on a subject of the highest importance ; a subject which requires from you, as Prime Mi- nister of this country, early and anxious investi- gation, i ■ The voice of advice to a Minister when public, is generally hostile ; but I am no*- an enemy, nor will my purpose be found unfriendly : indeed an Englishman can hardly, at this hour, be adverse to your administration, upon principles that fairly belong to a lover of his country. Your claims on the gratitude of the nation, are un- deniably great. You gallantly took the helm at a moment of unparallelled danger, and already wc have weathered the storm: The dawn of your administration has been a rapid passage ' • from • i -.12]- from danger to security, from famine to plenty, from arduous and seemingly interminable war to peace. ' *' ^^ ^ Nor is i*. essential tb the glory of this contrast, to assert that the merit of the tran- sition belongs exclusively to yourself. While we asc|;ibe to the bounty of Providence, the late exuberant harvest, and to its supreme and over-ruling sway, the whole deliverance, and while in the next place we fairly allow to your predecessors much of what your own candour ascribed to them as to the concluding triumphs of our arms, it will not be forgotten that the judi- cious use of means and opportunities, by which advantages have been improved into bles- sings, has been all your own. Neither de- pressed by calamity, nor distracted by diffi- culties, nor inflated by success, you have dis- played in the management of the helm of state a wisdom not inferior to the courage and disin- terestedness with which it was assumed. With such a minister, the admonitions of the press may not be necessary to add to the native force of truth the influence of its publicity ; but the subject to which I would solicit your atten- tion, is one upon which the public mind is not, i fear, sufficiently enlightened; and the popular voice, which is in some cases a salutary controul, may in others be^ needful aid, to the measures of a wise administration. Of Of tbe peace you have given to your country, the eonditions do honour to your judgement. .Xhcy have enlarged the bounds of the British empire and to an extent full as great as was either reasonable to expect, or prudent to require. Of the French conquests in Europe it would have been absurd to hope the restitution; and if there be ^any man who still thinks a larger portion of our <>wn in distant parts of the globe ought to have been retained, he forgets the nature of those dan- ger? which tl>e war was so long prosecuted to avert, and to diminish which, aa much as pos^ ^ible, was the British pacificator's most impoiiant object. He does not sufficiently consider that in the social, as in the natural body, extension is not strength ; and tliat stili more widely to disperse our muv^h scattered energies, would have been to lessen, rather dian encrease, our security against A rival force, formidable chiefly by its vicinity and its concentration : nor do such politicians remem- ber that commei'ce is the best sedative for the rest* less spirit of a warlike people ; and their transma- rine possessions the best guarantees of theirpacifib engagements to the greatest of mai-i4?ime states. for my own part, I freely confess that, could we have obtained the cession of all our colonial conquests, I should have thoi»ght a Peacp of such splendid acquisition, far less advantageous than the terms which your wMxlela^itJn haj cm^ braced. ^ .^ • )ino'> liid^l ' . Cessions \'i < Cessions more extensive, could scarcely have been sincere ; and would rather have resembled jewels lent to adorn a victim, than genuine of- ferings on the altar of Peace. But, it is useless to add the applause of a single voice to that chorus of approbation raised by parliament, and the nation at large : Nor is it the object of this address to justify the wisdom of the treaty, or throw new light on its advantages; but rather to point out some serious dangers of which the peace, prudent and beneficial as it is^ has unavoidably quickened the approach. ' Already one of its consequences has strongly excited, and still fixes the public attention. No sooner were the ports of France released from the long embargo which our victorious and irresist- ible navy had imposed, than armaments of great magnitude began to be prepared in them ; and with such dispatch were they compleated, that^ in little more than two months from the ratifica- tion of the preliminary articles, a powerful expe- dition issued forth, consisting, according to ge- neral and uncontradicted report, of 25 sail of the line, and S5,000 regular troops. That St. Domingo is the place of destination of this very formidable force, we have not only the warrant of uniform rumour, but, if I mistake not, of official authority for believing ; but all beyond that point is uncertainty and anxious conjecture. .Ji/ ^ id »f America, has i-enounCed its allegiance to the parcM state, artd is therefore to* Ije rednc-*' ed by fbice to its fbiHier dependence, others ap]f)eai^ to view the quarrel as a mere contest fo^" ' power between Toussaint aii^ Duofitij)hfte ; and ^ i ■ ft ' » But a nearer and more particular view of this lead- ing characteristic, may be necessary to those who have never seen a gang of negroes at their work. When employed in the labour of the field, as, for example, in holeing a cane piece, i. e. in i 'I \ i 1 1 ,',' jfi . [ 10 ] in turning up the ground with hoes into paral- lel trenches, for the reception of the cane plants^ the slaves, oi both sexes, from twenty, perhaps, to fourscore in number, are drawn out in a line, like troops on a parade, each with a hoe in his hand^ and clos6 to them in the rear is stationed, a driver^ or several drivers, in number duly proportioned to that of the gang. Each " these drivers, wha are always the most active and vigorous negroesr on the estate, has in his hand, oi* coiled round his neck, from which by extending the handicf it can be disengaged in a moment, a long thick and strongly plaited whip, called a cart whip ; the report of which is as loud, and the lash as severe, as those of the whips in common use with our waggoners, and which he ha* authority to apply at the instant when hia eye perceives an occasion, without any pre- vious warning. — ^Thus disposed, their work be- gins, and continues without interruption for a certain number of hours, during which, at thc' peril of the drivers^ an adequate poition of land inust be holed. As the trenches are generally rectilinear, and the whole line of holers advance together, it' is necessary that every hole or section of the trench shoukl be fmished in equal time with the rest ; and if any one or more negroes were al- lowed to throw iu the hoe with less rapidity ov e^icrgy tliaa tlieir companions in other parts of m- . ' ' ' thc [ 11 ] the line, it is obvious that the work of the latter must be suspended ; or else, such part of the trench as is passed over by the former, wilt be more infiperfectly fortned than the rest. It is, therefore, the business of tlie drivers, not only to urge forward the whole gang with sufficient speed, but sedulously to watch that all in the line, whethef male or female, olrf or young, strong or feeble, wOrk as httLtfy ai possible ill equal tiihe, and with equal effect. The tardy stfoke tnust be quickened, and the languid invigorated ; and the whole line made to dress, in the military phrase, as it advances. No breathing time, tio resting oh the hoe, no paude of latiguor, to be repaid by brisker exer- tion on return to work, can be allowed to indi- viduals; All must work, or pause together. ^"*-*^'^ I have taken this species of work as the strongest example: But other laboure of the platitition are conducted upon the same princi- ple, and, as nearly as inay be practicable, in the same manner. ■ : • When the nature of the work does not admit of the Slaves being drawn up in a line abreast, they are disposed, when the mtasure is feasible, in some other regular order, for the fticility of the drivers superintendence and coercion. In carrying the canes, for instance, from the field to thfe mill, they are marched jn files, each with a bundle on his head, and with the driver in the rear : Hjs voice I 12 ] ^v ' voice quickens their pace, and his whip, when necessary, urges on those who attempt to deviate or loiter in their march. Some parts indeed of the work of a planta- tion can only be done by the slaves in a state of dispersion, such as plucking tlie grass blade by blade in the ranges, or hedge rows, or on the mountains, for the provender of the horses and cattle. It is obvious that« in such cases, the immediate coercion of the driver cannot be applied ; recourse i^ therefore had to the mode of individual task-work. Each slave, for ex- ample, is obliged to pioduce and deliver to the driver or overseer, within a limited time, a bun- dle of grass of a certain magnitude, on pain of immediate pjimisluTient by the cart-whip on his return from the field ; and to quicken exertion at this task the time allowed for it is a part of the respite from more regular work, given to the slave, both for this purpose, and for- preparing and eating his meal; so that if he Avastes time in grass-hunting, he loses in the same proportion the comfort of his dinner, or perhaps the dinner itself) from want of time to prepare it. Yet so inadequate are these seem- ingly powerful expedients to supply xvith men used to be driven, the presence of ths driver, that the bundles of grass are rarely brought in by all > the slaves in due time, and of sufficient mag- nitude; and it has been observed of this part of f [ 13 ] ; ' their work in the English Islands, that the neg- lect of it occasions more punishment than all the rest of their trespasses put together. With these, and other necessary exceptions of solitary work, such as that performed by sugar- boilers and certain artificer, the compulsion of^ labour by the physical impulse or present terror of the whip is universal ; apd it would be as extraor- dinary a sight in a West India Island to see a line or file of negroes without a driver behind them, as it would be in England to meet a team of horses on a turnpike road without a carman or waggoner. Let me again profess, that the comparison is not made for the sake of odium, but Only for illustration, which no less offensive image that occurs to me can so well furnish. Such then, Sir, antecedently to the revolution, were the most important lineaments of the con- dition of the negroes in the French Colonies ; unless it differed in these points, which, during many years residence in their neighbourhood I never heard asserted, from the state of the English slaves. The negroes were the absolute^ vendible property of the master ^ were worked and main- tained at his discretion,* and were driven at their labours in thejield. • The regulations of the Code noir which went partly to restrain the abuse of this power and that of punishment, were almost wholly neglected in practice.— See Annalit du Conseil Soicverain dt la MartOtijue,— Toms i. Stf2.S, and S81. ; n^.uv,4 ' " A great :i'f T [ 1* ] A great change has since been mtroduced at St. Domingo, Cayenne, and Guadaloupe; in the former by insurrection, in the two latter by decrees of the National Convention of France ; and I wouJd* in the next place, briefly er quire what have been its nature and effects. > Of the interior affairs of those Colonies since this change took place .very little distinct infor- mation has been attainable in Europe. The press, which by giving domestic publicity to the events of a civilized community, brings them easily to the notice of its neighbours, h^ natu- rally been inactive among an illiterate people ; and they have been visited only by persons whose errand was commerce or war, and who have in general had little desire, and less op|)ortumty, to procui'c? statistical intelligence; and as little dis- position to lay such intelligence as they chanced to acquire before the public on their retmn. ' 'Hie danger that might have attended research, in a country yet agitated by the waves of revo- lution, a countiy where a white face was an en- sign of hostility, has doubtless tended power- fully to I'estrain curiosity in the visitors of St. Dominga ^ But after full allowance made for all tlieso obstacles, there will remain considerable ground for surpiise at the profound darkness that hangs over some parts of this interesting sub- ject. From the interior of St. Domingo in par- ticular, scarcely one distinct ray has reached our horizon; i M A* m horizon, and its affairs are almost as unknown to Europe, as those of any nation in the centre of Africa, R es alt& rerri et caligine raersas. Enough, however, has transpired, and enough may be clearly inferred from known political ef- fects, to prove that the negro bondage, to the great characteristics of which I have called your attention, exists no more in those Colonies. The negroes are no longer the property of a master, transferable at his will ; he is no longer the uacontrouled assessor of their labour, and of the returns to be given fot it by himself; and by whatever sanctions public or private, indus- try may be enforced, the cultivators are certainly not worked as formerly, under the lash of a driver. All the accounts, such as we have, which pro* fess to give information of the new system, are thus far unanimous. They generally also represent the negroes of St. Domingo, as living for the most part in great indolence; and agriculture, except so far as respects the easy culture of coifee and pro- visions, as being in a very languishing state; a description which pretty clearly imports the absence of the driver, and of the au- thority of private owners. Nor do such ac- counts admit of stronger confirmation than that which t le J • . which arises from the state of the exports of that once flourishing colony ; which though said of late to have greatly encreased, have since the Revolution, been insignificantly small when compared to their former extent. From the regulations respecting :^eld labour, published by Toussaint in October 1 800, the same inferences, as to the new condition of the negroes, may undeniably be drawn; since for the purpose of enforcin J industry, the fear of military punish- ments is in every case, made the substitute for the former coercion ,\and a labourer refusing to work^ is, by these regulations, made liable to be arrest" td, and punished as a military deserter. But this punishment is not to be inflicted by the private master or by the drivers, who thoug'i they retain their name, are evidently disarmed of their whips, for the offenders are directed to be carried be/ore ike military commandant^ (see articles 2 and 7 f^f this curious ordinance in the Appendix*) From the smaller Island of Guadaloupe, and from Cayenne, our intelligence is rather more sa- tisfactory and distinct. That these Colonies have by no means been left uncultivated there is a like uniformity of report; and the truth of it is proved by the considerable export trade which they maintained with neutral nations down to the end of the war; though there is great dis- cordance between different accounts, a^ %a the labour, he same legroes, purpose punish- e for the to work^ : arrest" But this private ;y retain jr whips, d before 2 a7id 7 r.) pe, and norc sa- ies have is a like )f it is e which iown to eat dis- ^o the jatttit/ I i7 j qliahtity of their exported produce in cottiparl- «on with its former amounts If a late report on the colonies published by the French govern- ment may be credited, Cayenne, in an agricul- tural, as well as commercial' vieWj never was in a more flourishing state ; and representations equally favourable are given of Guadaloupe, by persons who found their opinions on private information respecting its exports to North America. But these estimates are I doubt not, greatly too large, especially in the latter case ; and it seems more probable that Gaudaloupe does not at present produce one half, perhaps not much more than one third, of its average crop of sugar and coffee anterior to the revolution. To assign reasons for this opinion would be a useless digres- sion, for the fact is not material to my argument* As it is notorious that in both the latter colonies considerable quantities of produce are raised) negro labour cannot be wholly disconti- nued) But that this labour is obtained by othec means than the agency of the driver, is a fact established by the agreement of every report, public or private, direct or circuitous, with which 1 am acquainted ; and as I shall speedily shew, is confirmed by still stronger and less resistible evidence. As th^ new state of the negroes both at Gua- .daloupf and Cayenne was introduced by the C gpvenvncat, ¥ '. ». T government, it was also defined by positive law, at the time of its introduction. You will find in the Appendix, a translation both of the con- vent! jnal decree for enfranchising the slaves in the colonies, and of the proclamation with which was accompanied, when published by the French commissioners at Point Pitre in July 1794. The negroes were by this law expressly released from slavery, and inve«;ted with all the rights of French citizens, and though industry was en- joined as a duty, the declared objects of that duty were themselves, their families, and the state, and not any particular master or em- ployer. If it was intended tliat the new rela- tions of stipendiary servant and master, should be formed between them and the same planters whose property they fonnerly had been, which does not clearly appear, the latter were at least required to give them a competent salary in re- turn for their work. In a word, they were placed, as far as an ex- press law could place them, in the condition of English labourers; though perhaps obliged to work on a particular estate*. From • If reports prevalent in the Leeward Islands soon after thit 1*6 volution were accurate, the limitation to a particular estate wai the rule only in respect of such negroes as cither could not or would [ 19 1 Trom the language of the French government in 1794, it would I admit be rash to infer its. real and permanent designs. But Victor Hugues was not in a condition to violate with impu- nity his engagements to the negroes of Gua- daloupe.: By the sole aid of these newly-cre- ated citizens and soldiers, he was enabled to re-conquer that valuable coLny ; and solely by their fidelity and zeal could he hope to defend it during the war, against the unresisted mas- ters of the seas. He was obliged therefore by political necessity to adhere to the promises on the faith of which they had joined him ; and that he did in good earnest establish and maintain their freedom was well known, to the terror of the British planters in all the adjacent islands. It was, indeed but too manifestly proved by the astonishing effects which followed; espe- cially in the disastrous aeraof the insurrections in St. Vincent's and Grenada. The freedom of the negroes alone, and their zealous attachment to the government, not only made this little terri- tory impregnable, but enabled Victor Hugues to pour from it, as from a volcano, teiTorand devastation around him, ^ would not employ themselves industriously upon some other plantation of their own choice. But the fact is not very mate- rial to my argument, and I wish not to overstate the extent of this revolution in any point, but rather whtre the case ii doubtful, to lean to the other side. ^ That 'i). [ 20 1 That industry Ti'hich the law enjoined, he found from causes shortly to be noticed, not easy to be enforced. Jn a great degree, he was probably obliged to acquiesce in the neg* lect of it; and if reports spread in the neigh- bouring British colonies in 1795 deserve cre- dit, he did not obtain the degree of agricul- tural labour that was yielded in the mfancy of his new system without resorting to the utmost severities of military discipline, treating the incorrigibly idle as mutineers, and punish- ing some of them with death, as examples to the rest. Such reports are however liable to much suspi- cion ; for never certainly were there sronger por pular motives to blacken the chai-acter of an ene- my, than those which prompted the tongue of fame at tliat period against Victor Hugues, and his system of government, among his West In- dian neighbours. I do not wish to be his apologist, for he seems to have been a ferocious and unprincipled cha- racter; but it is unlikely that his black troops would contentedly be the instruments of such se- veritv on their brethren; and there is no satis- factory evidence of any such executions. Tlie fact however if it ej^istcd, proves the truth of my proposition : for if recourse was had ig such severe measures, they were acts of publiCt not of private, authority, and were substitutes 1 for ,1 .5!- w .& *'.*! [ned, he ced, not !gree, he the neg' e neigh- ?rve cre- agricul- mfancy r to the treating 1 punish- [es to the eh suspi- )nger por f an ene- Migue of lies, and West In- he seems led cha- H troops •suchse- lo satis- the truth i had tQ puhlic, bstitutea for t SI ] for the power of the master, and the coeifcion of the driver's lash. At the same time, the prevalence of such a ru- mour whether true or false in the neighbouring island^ some of which lie within sight of the shores of Guadaloupe, evinces that the general change in tlie condition of the French negroes was there notorious. It wis the indolence pro- duced by that change that was supposed to have demanded, or from the brutality of Hugiie» to have received, so rigorous a species of cor- rection. From the sitenee 6f report as to opposite factsy an inference still more convincing' may be drawn. It never has been alleged to my knoti^ledge, and during eight years which have elapsed since the express enfranehisement in qiiestion my attention has been alive to the subject, it haa never beert the topic of rumour public or private, that negroes have been seen at Guadaloupe or Cayenne, working under the whip of the driver. This in its nature is not a fact which if it existed could escape observation. By thou- sands of Americans and other neutral persons resorting to those colonies, and by very many British who have been carried thither as pri- soners of war, negroes must have been often seen at work ; and even from the decks of the l^ritish and other vessels coasting along the shore of Guadatoupe, they must frequently have *'i been [ 22 ] f J I i; mn I* !« v. been observed, had they worked in gangs as formerly, with the drivers very distinguishable in the rear. Is it then to be imagined that a fact so decisive of the re-establishment or continuance of the old system, would not have been announced in our Islands, and from thence to the British public ? Surely Sir, I need not remind you how large a stake our West India fellow subjects have, or think they have, in the public opinions on these matters; or ask you to reflect how much and how naturally the example of the revolutions in the French Islands excited their alarms! A mo- ment's consideration therefore will convince you,, that the total failure of an experiment the final success of which must be at once dan- gerous and opprobrious to the system they fondly support, would have been eagerly and triumphantly announced : nor could the obvious policy have been overlooked of trumpeting in the ears of the English negroes the restoration of the cart- whip at Guadaloupe, To my mind, this negative argument is a stronger proof than the testimony of a hundred witnesses of what I am warranted by the result of much private enquiiy to believe, that a ne- gro driver is no longer to be seen in these co^ lonies. Of positive details even respecting the new system, we are not wholly unprovided. The fr? MLI^ [ 23 ] '•'^ The return to be made to the negroes of a plantation col'ectively for their annual labour, was fixed by Victor Hugues at one-third of the value of the produce. This was also the general law at Cayenne, and, if I rightly re- member, at St. Domingo; though laws have scarcely had any operation in that distracted Island. Another third was allotted to the owner; and the rest to the Republic. *' According to other accounts, the remaining third was to supply the expences of the estate; which seems the^most probable, because without a provision for these, the o^mer's share would have been exhausted in sustaining them, and the share of the Republic would have been too palpably enormous. But, perhaps, the contradic- iction may be explained by the fact, that both at Guadaloupe and St. Domingo, a great propor- tion of the estates were by forfeiture or seques- tration, in the hands of the government. '# Nothing obviously could be more inconve- nient, than so precarious and distant a remune- ration for labour as a share of a West India crop, to men who piust live by their daily la- bour; it was, therefore, speedily improved by Victor Hugues, into an allowance, either by way of commutation or advance, payable pe- riodically to each labourer ; and this he origin- ally fixed at such a number of livres per week, as considering the great scarcity of specie in the f'^ " colony, t «4 J colony, was a tolerably ample subsistence, I tbink it was nine livres, ^ As fOfX as private enquiry has enabled me to fonn {( judgment of the fact, th^ rate of wages both there and at Cayenne has since been li^ed fi'om time to time by the Government; which has also es^ercised an intimate superintendance and con-i troul both over the masters and tbe plaiitation negroes, obliging the latter to labour, as well asi the former to give what is^ deemed ^ suflSeicnt^ support. The regime by which these ends are accom-* plished, is wholly military ; and refractoriness iq the negroes is punished when necessary, not by^ ^e master, or at his discretiop, but by the order" of a public officer or court, That authoritative information on these points cannot Ibe obtained, is much to be regretted* \ might appeal, however to proclamations of the executive authority 9X Guadaloupe, and those of Toussaint, as well as of the Commissioners and agents of the French Government at St, Domingo, in further proof j that industry how- ever regulated} is now considered as a duty to be iucidcated by persuasion, or enforced by tlie sanctions of municipal law aided by a military police, and not a mere physical effect to be ex*; cited by the application of the lash. I allude here to papers with which you, Sir^ a?id every reader must be familiar, as they have gftc^ Sir* [ 25 ] often been published in our daily prints. They contain strong expostulations against the vice of indolence, and earnest invitations to agricul- tural industry, as essentia] both to public and private happiness. Now such addresses fi'om the governors to the governed, do not more clearly prove indolence to be a prevalent bad habit in the community, than they demonstrate the total subvei-sion of the old system in all its funda- mental parts. Such a proclamation if address- ed to the negroes in an English West Indiit Island, could only be considered as an imperti- nent interference with the authority of the mas- ter, and the interior discipline of his plantation ; AS a reflection on the activity of the drivers, and ajcruel mockery of the slaves. Perhaps Sir, you may think that I am press* ing this point with more assiduity than it re* fjuires. To the well infoi-med in West India af- fairs, it is certainly unnecessary to prove the tf-ie nature of the revolutions in question : but Si great majority of the public, being ignorant as J have already observed, of the distinguish- ing character of negro-bondage, is of course liable to much imposition and mistake in judg- ing of those revolutions by which that bondage has been abolished, ^nd of the important changes which have been produced : and advantage has been ti^ken of this circumstance to propagate in I ill' : ■I: [ 2(5 ] in the public mind errors which may be of dan- gerous consequence. ^ • It is curious enough to observe in how loose and unintelligent a manner, persons even of ge- neral political . knowledge, will express them- selves on this subject. Since the recent insur- rection in Guadaloupe for instance, it has been often said in the best conducted public prints, that the negroes had " declared ^br freedom ;" that " they had demanded their liberty from " their masters ; " &c. and it has been called " a revolt of the slaves." « N /'jThat the cause of that remarkable insurrection was an attempt of Lacrosse under the orders of Buonapaite, to restore the old system of slavery, I shall hereafter offer some reasons for believing : But it is singular, that in the year 1802, the slavery of the negroes of that Island should be spoken of in London newspapers as a state from which they had never enlergedi and the chains of which they were newly attempting to break. ^u .■jNj*>.^aai*fj<'»i»fci ^j-wfj'*^ i> . Unhappily in this, as in other cases, the am- biguity of language is fetal to the cause of truth. The great and recent abuses of the terms, " liberty and freedom," " slavery and bond- " age," have given them a meaning in European ears widely different from their genuine poli- tical import; but infinitely more distant still i,; , ^ from [ 27 ] from what they are practically felt to imply in the West Indies. There are no proper and peculiar names to distinguish the state of the negro in bondage, from his enfranchised con- vdition. We, therefore call him in the one state a slave; in the other, ?t. freeman; and the European is not aware that the distinc- , tion has no similitude to those which have oc- casioned so many important, and so many foolish quarrels, in his own quarter of the globe ; that it has no affinity with aristocracy on the •one hand, or with democracy on the other; , with Jacobinism, or with Anti-jacobinism; that ; it immeasurably transcends in its importance to the individual, the most ej^tremie differences known in Europe, in the degrees of muni- cipal freedom or restraint between the most fa- ; voured, and least fortunate people ; between the . peasant of England, and the peasant of Russia; that it is in, truth, little short of the whole dif- ference between brutal and rational nature, t^u, '* Hence the necessity of fixing, if I was able, with precision, the true nature of that condition inadequately defined by the term slavery from which the French negroes have passed, and its essential difference from that to which they . have attained. Having ^cconnplished I trust that prelim- „ inary task, as far as consists with the plan and J,, the necessary limits of this address, 1 proceed i to / w [ 48 T to offer my reasons for suspecting that a coutp» ter*reoolution in the state of the enfranchised negroes, is the main object of France in her JVest India ea^pedition. The great and urgent motive by which the counsels of the Republic may be presumed to be prompted in regard to the West Indies, is an impatient wish to restore the agricultural and commercial value of her colonies. The monoply of the European sugar markets by her great rival, is a disadvantage not patient- }y to be borne. The restoration of her marine too in point of comparative importance cannot b<» hoped for, while a nursery so great as West Inditf V navigation, is nearly lost to her^ and possessed almost exclusively by Great Britain. Not doei her revenue, less than her maritime interests^ demand the recovery of bei* colonij^ resoui^ces in all their former maguitude* But in the sugar colonies of Fi^aft^e, es^c!'' ally in that whose former importance eclipse ^ ed all the rest united, and the e?itent df which has been vastly increase by the cession of \ Spanish St Domingo^ negro liberty seems tot be an insuperable obstacle tQ all these great and necessary views-. While the negroes were in bondage, that co* " lony was rich and flourishing by the eflfeetsof tlieir labour; since their eiifranchisement, it ha* . , ' . .:, becom6> i^ ■ [ 29 J become comparatively almost a neglected waste. All the solicitations of the officers of the Re- public, all the influence and authority of their own favorite Chiefs, have failed to recall them to any tolerabie degree of regular industry. What then remains, but either to restore the rigid yoke of the private master, and renew the coercion of the cart-whip, or permanently ta leave this fine Island in its present unprofitable state ? Thus it appears at first sight not nnnatural for the Chief Consul to reason. Perhaps, in- deed it may appear in the sequel that such a counter-revolution will not easily be effected; and that if effected, it would not durably restore the prosperity of the Colony. But this if not the surest, is at least the shortest, course : the ne- cessities of the republic are urgent, and nations^' as well as individuals, —•*< Often strike their dearest wish far ofl» v- •. Through ardor to posses it." *fr,. Besides, it is not consonant with the charac- ter of the Chief Consul to be deterred by dif- ficulties : he delights in a rapid dazzling at- chievement : the tardy triumphs of a cautious policy, are not congenial to his temper, and may arrive too late to consolidate his power, or to fi^ast his appetite for fam^ ^:jrj Numerous ekh 11: [ 30 ] Numerous and powerful private interests too may probably concur with his own, and the ap- parent interests of the republic, in demanding from Buonaparte the re-establishni^nt of the former system. vt^D^^i The planters of the French Islands were not only a very numerous and opulent body antece- dently to the revolution, hut so many of them had been ennobled, and so many of the ancient noblesse had either acquired estates in the Colo- nies, or intermarried with the families of opu- lent Creoles, that they possessed among the highest orders, as well as in the commercial cir- cles, a very extensive influence. Their powei* and interest have no doubt beeo in great measure lost by the general ruin of their fortunes; very few of them» ey:ept at Cayenne, and in the Islands conquered by Great Britain, having escaped confiscation and exile. Their counter-revolutionary principles, must also, have contributed previously to the govern- ment of Buonaparte, to destroy their weight in the republic. But the conciHatory system of the Chief Consul has iv'called from exile a great part of this unfortunf»te body, who, as far as can be collected, are friendly to his authority,' and he, if not partial to. them as a particular description of royalists, is at least disposed to protect and favor them as a branch of that nu- merous party. If report may be credited, he is even : -*n».iT*i;i.a '* ^ V, [ 31 ] even connected with them by marriage, Madam Buonaparte being as it is said, of a Creole far mily, and intitled to a plantation in one of the French Windward Islands. The desire of conciliating a body of men, powerful by their numbers and connections, and formidable to a new government even by the desperate circumstances to which they are re- duced, may concur with other and more generous motives to engage the Chuef Consul in the enterprise of reinsteting the planters in their estates. But how can this work be accomplished con- sistently with the freedom of the negroes ? To give back the land, without the means of its culti- vation, would be a mockery, rather than a benefit. Are then the former slaves, and their issue born or groM^i up to puberty duiing ten years th?^t have succeeded the Revolution, f-y be sent back to the plantations to which they for- merly belonged, and obliged to work thereon as free labourers without ihe presence of the drivers. ? I shall pvcsently have occasion to shew the for- m? lable difficulties, of reducing sucli a project into practice. But let us suppose it accomplished, and enquire how it would alfcct ^le master. Between hlia and these unwilling servants, mutual distrust and hatred would, in most cases to s high degree prevail. They have driven him into •f . 11 [ 32 ] into exile, and laid waste his property perhaps have shed the blood of some of his dearest rela- tives, during the horrors of the Revolution; and though to the satisfactory renewal of any intimate civil connection whatever between them these are serious obstacles, they are peculiarly adverse to the forming a relation hitherto untried, to the success of which reci- procal confidence and goodwill would be pecu liarly requisites The stem system that was overthrown asked for no such confidence ; appealed to no feelings of the heart for its security ; but ^as perfectly compatible with mutual distrust and detestation. If therefore this sytem could be renewed, and the authority of the drivers sustained against the new character of the negroes by the energies of the stated the master might again hope to sleep in safety on his plantation, and cany on its bu- siness with effect. But I doubt whether a single individual could be found among the exiled planters, hardy enough to be desirous of regain- ing his property at the peril of residing among his former slaves, and holding the loosened reins of such private authority as might be found compatible with their freedom. I here suppose the negroes to be obliged to la- Ijour exclusively for the former owner, or upon the estate to which they formerly belonged, like the Adscnpti Glcbaiy in many ancient and even . ( 1 ss ] 4ven modem dountries,^ and the fhanarial vU- lains among our ancd$tora in thi^ islanil. Bot Vere it proposed to leave them at freedetn to choose their master^ and ihe master to chooaie from the common stock iHm labooretd he wouM employ^ tltotigh the precedifi^ dbjeetiotis t^^uld indeed be iti some points lessened) othdir and more formidable diiil^ultk^ 4ould kride. - Th^ planter'^ fortune alid Gte<$it VoUld »i!ikl be iiAt to depend on hi^ success' in the cothpetitio^ for servants, whefher his planta(^k>h eould litttat^ Stately be brought into culture or hot. Credit was aeCesssbry to him 6teh in hiftforinelr flourishing circumstances,*- but where could h^ ebCain it now ? A merchant would perhaps, not ht tery prompt on any tettAs to embark hil capital, on an rx^ean hitherto unexploi^d, with a tiew to thetjrecarious returns^ to be expected from the Iplo^tr :>f fi*ee negroes : But if the owner 6ftir ji; rt ti m has for ever lost thctklue of hii dkvesi Im [./o^^^erty k dimhiished by this rcduc** tioA one third in its value, over and above all other losses and deteriorations by revolutiott sjftd war. In receiving baek the land despoiled of N8 work» ftnd< buildings, and of all the stock ttcf: ^ for its culture, wtt^ottt any renewed D property %;l I \i ■111 ;i ^ fl I" f!; < i [ 34 J property in the negroes,, it would be a high esti" mate to say that he would be re-instated in two fifths of his former fortune; and let those who know the ordinary circumstances of West India estates, determine what relief planters in general would derive from such a partial restitution! Unless their former situations were widely dif- ferent indeed from that of their English bre- thren, the Consul by such an act of justice might confer indeed some benefit on the unfor- tunate creditors or mortgagees, but certainly none at all on »> Lnter himself. How then in i. s case could new credit be obtained ? or how without credit are the works to be rebuilt, and all the stock and costly imple- ments to be supplied ? Destitute of these, a sugar plantation would be like the cup of Tantalus to its unfortunate owner. It deems probable for these and other reasons, that with all the difficulty of the attempt to re- establish the master's property in his negroes, and absolute authority over them, nothing less will satisfy the West Indian party in France. How- ever hazardous the game, it is the only one that the Creole proprietor can play, with a chance of redeeming for his own benefit any part of the stake. If we attend to the language and conduct of the Chief Consul, since peace with this com^ry put him in a jsituation to atteixtipt to regulate the V transmarinei transmarine interiests of FrancCj ^^le shall find no reason to disbelieve that these considerations have had a decisive influence on his counsels. In an elaborate report upon the situation of tha republic, presented by him to the legislative body, and published in the Moniteur of Novem- ber 24th, he thus expresses himself respecting the West India colonies : " In the West, Gua- ** daloupe has preseroeC a share qfits agricul- ** ture and prosperity, %Ck In St. Ddmingo, ** some irregular acts have excited fears, S^c. " In these two islands there are no more slaves; " all ARE free; and so they shall remaik. " In Martinique, a different policy has been ** pursued: the practice of slay ery has been" " THERE CONTINUED, AND IT MUST BE PRE- " SERVED. It would cost too much to humanity^ *' to attempt there a new revolution, Guyana, *• and the Isles of France and of Reunion, have ** been faithful to the Republic, and have pros- " pered, though under feeble, and uncertain ad* " ministrations,''* * If any nian can read this language, and retain a doubt whether Buonaparte's views are inimical or not to negro freedom, let him recollect that Guadaloupe and St. Domingo were colonies in which the avowal of such an enmity would have united all hearts and hands in opposition ^o the arms of the Republic, at that critical mo- ment when Uie armaments were just departing from i^ :ft I. .4 I 36 3 firom her harbotirs ; and that respecting Martin nique there could be no motive for dissimula- tion in either case,, because Great Britain was bound to restore that island peaceably to his possession and authority. The French pJ^inters could certainly not ofFet a moment's opposition to whatever measures the Consular government might think fit to adopt, especially if such mea^ sures were of a nature popular among the slaves. But if the Consul W9s sincere in his language as to this island^ what principle^ moral or poli- tical, can make the sincerity of his promise to the negroes of Guadaloupe worthy of a mo- ment's credit? To maintain two such opposite systems in islands M'ithin sight of each other,, would be not more preposterous than im'- '!ticable. The pre- tence seems, almost too gr js> for the blunt intel- lects of the poor beings whom it was intended' to cajole. But the emphatic silence as to the system in* tended for Cayenne or GuyanOy makes the hypo-^^ crisy of this paper still more flagrant. It is notorious that the negroes of that co- lony were in the same free condition with that of their brethren in Guadaloupe ; and that their enfranchisement had been repaid by fidelity to 1^ Republic the Consul himself acknowledges. In fkot their freedom alone could have averted tbe conquering anns of Great Britain; for an expedition [ 37 ] expedition was actually meditating against the settl«nent, when the decree of enfranchisement arrived and made it impregnable. That the colony has prospered under the new order of things this state paper also admits. Yet no engagement is made to maintain negro liberty in Guyana : on the contrary, it is spoken of in the same breath, and in the same manner, with the Isles of France and Bourbon, or Re-^ union, where the condition of the slaves has never been altered. If it be asked why the same dissimulation was not necessary in regard to Cayenne as is supposed to have been practised towards the two other colonies, I answer, because it con* tained at the time of its revolution only about 15,000 slaves; while Guadaloupe had 100,000, and St. Domingo half a million*. There * By an official return made to the National Assembly of France, in 1790 St Domingo contained 480,000 slaves, and S4>,848 free people of colour. In the same year 34,840 African slaves were imported. When, therefore, we add the farther imports prior to the Revolution, and the many thou- sands of Guinea negroes captured in British slave-ships, and carried into the ports of that island during the war, we may after much allowance for the ravages of the sword, and with- out reckoning on any extraordinary increase by births, from the effects of the new system, or including the negroes of Spanish St. Domingo, reasonably suppose the island now to contain 500,000 negroes or persons of negro extraction. In estimating m [ 38 ] There was perhaps some further security agai~«st resistance in this case; for if a recent ublicaifon of the French government deserves '^red:^, t would seem that Victor Hugues, the able and versatile agent of France, must have already eiFected at Cayenne some changes fa^ vourable to the restitution of the old system ; but if so, his work will probably not be perma- nent* Were the nature and causes of the recent re- volution in Guadaloupe fairly bc;fore the pub- lic, the Chief Consul's West India policy would perhaps be more clearly disclosed. All we know of that remarkable event war- rants the suspicion that Lacrosse^ a governor lately sent from France, had attempted changes hostile to the freedom of the negroes. He ar- rived at Guadaloupe in the month of June last, with two frigates, and about 600 veteran troops ; estimating the number of negroes enfranchised by ^he Revo, lution, at G^adaloufe, I include the negroes pf the small de. pendent Islands of Mariealante and the Saintes, and believe the estimate is too low. * The paper alluded to neatly insinuates that the African slave trade had actually been restored in Guyana, by speaking; of the imports of negroes as a proof of the growing prosperity of the Colony, but without directly noticing any change of system by which the trade had been legally revived. It i^ very observable, however, that though Victor Hugues's dis. patches are referred to for this and other important particula^Sj^ no copy or extract from those dispatches is published^ fm4 [ 39 1 and immediately set on foot interior changes, of whieh a known immediate effect was that of inducing many planters who were in exile in the neighbouring islands to return to their estates. What those changes specifically were, he and the French Government have not thought proper to inform the European world. But dispatches and proclamations of this governor ofHcially published in France in October last imported that he was introducing some impor- tant novelties in the interior administration; and though the true nature of these was veiled in obscure generalities, it was evident enough, that to enforce greater industry in the lower orders, and to draw tighter the cords of autho- rity over them, were main objects of the pro- jected reformation. . • It was therefore very remarkable that no salvo in favour of freedoniy nor any protest against the restitution of the former bondage, was to be found in these papers. The evident liability to suspicion in those points of all such acts of government in the free^negro colonies, had made the most solemn protestations of ad- herence to the principle of freedom invariable accompaniments of every former law and pro- clamation on like subjects; but on this occa« >ion they were wholly omitted. i When with so striking a circumstance we connect It J ^ §s >u ill. 'I » I .if!' ;i * I 40 ] connect the speedy event, we eliall have Jittl^ difficulty to determine the general character of Lacrosse's improvements. Within two monthl afiter his arrival there wa$ a dangerous insuF'* rection against him; and though he aUedge4 in fais dispatches, published in the Moniteur of Diecember 8, that the commotion was speedily stilled, and that he could answer for the tran«r quiUity ^f the Colony, it was before the end of that mo^nth known in this country that he had been driven from his government, and aU the white inhabitants at the same time expelled <)r imprisoned. . This. Colony for eight years of war preceding his arrival had been faithful to the Republic, and undisturbed by civil commotions : innovations the most extreme that ever changed the civlJ destiny of man had not materially disturbed ha internal pedcc : the negroes had submitted implicitly to successive governors; and had even seen the popular founder of their freedom Victor Hugues, seized in their port by stratagem and sent a prisoner to France, by the authority of the Republic, yet were obedient and loyal to his successor. But Lacrosse's unknown mea^ sures, urged them at once into a general and successful rebellion ; and by the latest ^counts they continued to set at defiance the authority of France, notwithstanding the knowledge that the sea was now open to hfr anna. a ;>uji"f,F These t 41 ] These facts Sir, are impressive, and I request your close attention to them. ■"' They not. only serve to paint the true views of Buonaparte in the West, but indicate prettj^ clearly what measure of resistance awaits him. To all these indications of a general design adverse to the freedom of the negroes^ may be added the magnitude of the armament itself. That the sending out 25 sail of the line, and Si, 000 troops, merely to extort from Toussaint a submission M'hich he had not yet refused to the authority of the Republic, was an effort dis- pioportionate to such an object, cannot well be denied ; and let it be remembered that when thif great armament was dispatched from France, Guadaloupe was supposed to be in a state of tranquil submission to the Mother Country*. I do not with some persons suspect that the designs of Buonaparte in this expedition are treacherous and hostile to Gre * Britain ; but it is because I conclude that he has in view an en- terprjze much more extensive and arduous than to obtain the recognition of his authority from Toussaint. • Various accounts have lately been published, on what authority I know not, of very considerable further armaments having been recently dispatched to the West Indies from the ports of Fxaaccj aud those of her allies or dependants. As / \ f> lif I 43 1 As far then as the intentions of France can be inferred from the various indications which have been noticed, conjecture is uniformly guided to the same point, a design to restore in St. Do^ mingOy GuadaloupCf and CayennCf the old species of bondage. That this is her true aim has been shewn to be probable, from the inevitable tardi- ness of any otht^r expedient to restore her co- lonial agriculture, and from the repugnance of delay as well to the genius of the Consul, as to the pressing exigencies of the state. It haa been shewn to be \. obable also, from the inte-r rests and unquestionable wishes of 9> large ^nd powerful body of men in the Republic whom Buonaparte must be desirous to conciliate ; and the probability appears to be greatly strengthen - cd, by the Unguage he has publicly used, by the; measures of his chosen governors in the West Indies, and by the magnitude of those military preparations the object of which I have at- tempted to explore. lam, S:c, &c^ LETTER [ 43 ] LETTER IL Sill, Jl PROPOSED in the se- cond place to enquire, what consequences in' t cresting to Great Britain are likely to result 'om the depending West India enterprise of tne Republic f In the course of that enquiry, to which we now proceed, the justice of those important views which it is my wish to unfold, will not \it found entirely to depend on the truth of the conclusion which it was atjkeippted in the pre- ceding letter to establish. For the purpose of determining more clearly the most probable immediate effects of the ex- pedition, I shall indeed assume in the first place, that its object is such as has been inferred ; but shall afterM'ards consider the result of a contrary Ji^pothesis ; and shall rdaspn to no ultimate of prac- [ 44 ] practical conclusions, but such as will le found fai^y to arise from the premises already laid down, or remaining to be adduced, if those premises were true in point of fact, whatever may be at this period the real designs of the Chief Consul. This branch of the subject naturally resolves itself into two distinct, though closely allied, considerations. First. The probable issue of the Expedition in the French Colonies. Secondly. 7%,? ef' Jects its success or failure are likelif to produce in the British West India Islands. ' Within a very short period, probably before tht!se sheeti^ whici* I am now penning can issud from the press, the arrival and the first effects of the armament in question will be known in Europe. They will probably be represented in the most favourable colours ; and it is most likely that without the aid of exaggeration, they will be such as to give apparently a strong assurance of ultimate success. The towns and forts on the coast of St. Domingo will probably be con- quered with great facility ; perhaps, will offer no resistance ; especially if the fleet and army should not be divided or retarded in their progress after their arrival at the Wind- Avard Islands, by necessary operations against GuaiUloupe. -^.bi ■ I It*; r 50 ] introduce some little varieties in the mode, (ft breaks in the continuity of it, which give him sensible relief. He can rest on his spade, or stay the plough a moment in the furrow; can gaze at a passing object, or stop a brother villager to spend a brief interval in talk. To the reflecting mind, these little privilege* will not appear unimportant, when contrasted with the hard and cheerless lot of the field negro. iid is not at liberty to relax his tired muscles, or beguile his weariness, either by voluntary pauses in labour, or by varying its mode : he must work on with his fellow slaves, let fatiguor or satiety groan ever so much for a moment^ respite, till the driver allows a halt. But far more deplorable is the want of all those animating hopes that sweeten the toil of the European peasant. To the negro slave driven to his work, his involuntary exer- tions as they can plead no merit, can promise in general no reward. His meal will not be more plentiful, nor his cottage better fmnislied,^ by the fruits of hia utmost toil. As to his wife and children, they can hardly be called bis own: whether the property of the same, ox a different owner, it is upon the mastei, not on himself, that their subsistence and well being depend. The negro therefore casts his hoe frow no in> pulse but that of fear, and fear brouglit so close;'* ty a.a^l coQtiuu^y into contjact wi^i il» object, [ 51 ] that we can hardly allow it to rise above brutal instinct, and call it rational foresight, without ascribing to the docility of the horse an equal clevationv The other great and pleasing spring of human action, hope, is entirely cut oiF. When these peculiar cii*cumstances are duly- considered, the rooted aversion of the free negro to his former labours, cannot excite sur* prise. It is unnecessary to suppose that they were excessive in degree, for in their kind, they were too irksome to be by the most patient of our race contentedly endured, or remembered without abhorrence. Neither is it necessary to suppose that th6 impending lash was in the ordinary routine of field duty often actually inflicted. The human team might when well broken, move on so regu* larly, as to make the whip in the hand of a hu* mane driver little more than a mere ensign of au- thority; yet the sense of perpetual constraint, and ever goading necessity, would be much the same^ The motive would still be instant fear though pro* ducingfrom habitaregularand equable movement. It might be admitted even without danger to thfi argument, though I am sorry to say no^ without doitig violence to truth, a9 well m pro* bability, that thi* coarse actuation of tht phy* flical powers of the human frame by an etHOsmtl mind itittre^ted ih fh^ir effect, was in g«ttOfaHot pu»)i«d t«6)icei4 ; ]iui M^as ki& ifn|ittll« if kftitfif)^ and IIS [ 52 ] and wisely regulated, as that of reason, when guided by the sympathies of the soul with the body to which nature has allied it. Nay we might overlook the inevitable frequency of such excesses as masters of narrow or unfeeling minds, may be expected to practise; and suppose that in the time or measure of work, avarice armed with unlimited power, never exacted too much, nor ever made too little allowance for occasional or particular weakness; in other words, that while thrones in Europe too rarely find possessors fit to govern, the sceptre of a plantation falls into the hands of none but Antonines and Trajans ! ! Still we should see in this manner of enforcing work, and in the general circumstances of West India bondage, enough to account for a strong antipathy in the breast of the enfranchised negro to his former state, and its attendant labours. If industry be not seldom wanting even among the lower classes in Europe ; how can these poor husbandmen, who know the duty only by its thorns, be expected to practice it ? My surprize I own is rather that with all the aid of military organization, in the hands of a government popular by giving freedom, agri- culture has been in any degree kept up at Gua- daloupe, and Cayenne, than that it has so greatly languished at St. Domingo. Should it be objected, that this dislike to la- bour in their new state, is h\xt^ prejudice, which t : ,s the t 53 ] they have had time to conquer, by observ- ing the ease and the happy effects of volun- tary industry ; it may be answered, that victory over prejudice, especially in illiterate minds, is not soon or easily gained. Men far- more ad- vanced than negroes in the exercise of their rea- soning powers, find it hard to abstract the essen- tial nature of any subject of experience, from its usual, though adventitious attendants. We are not easily persuaded that a medical draught is not nauseous, and the pardoned convict would probably shudder at revisiting his dungeon, though for a purpose of curiosity or enjoyment. But it is not only from the close association, between the ideas of labour, and painful co- ercion, that the difficulty in this case proceeds. Unaccustomed to act upon the motives pro- per to influence him in his new condition, the negro cannot easily apprehend their nature or their force. When you talk to him of the re- wards of industry, and the evil consequences of indolence, you speak a language he can but very imperfectly understand. Hopes and dis- tant fears, as incentives to work, are to him as a new science whereof he has the very elements to leam; or rather like senses, the organs of which are become from want of use inflexible and unsusceptible. You might as reasonably ex- pect a deaf man to march by beat of the drum. To reclaim an Indian from his vagrant habits, ; ■ , and f [ 5i ] ♦nd prevail on him to exchange the precarious subsistence of the chace, for the su'-er returns of the plough, has been found always difficult, and generally impracticable. But the case of thQ enfranchised negro, though not finally so hope- less, is at first more difficult to remedy. The one is a wild but vigorous youth, who will no.t easily submit to the drill; the other a ricketty infant, in whom from unnatural restraint the ipuscles of voluntary motion are contracted, The former may revolt from the yoke of disci- pline, but the latter must be taught to walk. In the negro, the self-dependency of a ra-. tional being, the close connection between his, condu<;t and his n^^turalj or social welfare, arQ ideas perfectly new; for in his past state, the or- dinary prudential lessons of experience, have been entirely wapting. To apeak more properly, they ha,ve been inverted, increase of labour, haa by impairing his, health a^d strength, diroi- nisl>e4 hisi bodily ^pmfbrts without adding to^ his ex,tern9:l enjoyments. His subsistence, hwi been proportioned tp his imbecilities, ir^ther than to his powers of exertion: when aWe to dp least for the waster, he has yeceive^ tlie most; from him ; and inaction, when sickness producr e^ a respite from liis. labours, has. he^ the pa-i rent rather of plenty, than of want, ; . '. • But it woukl require researches into the hun Dtt^n hearcj ']t soldiers, is for the ordinary purposes of civil government, a plain and easy expedient, and in a polished state of society the coarse engine when once put into action possesses, for a time at least, in^sistible force. But its impulse is ra- ther of a benumbing, than a stimulating kind. The terror it ilispires will make men tame, and passive, but it is ill fitted to enforce the equable and persevering performance of active duties. The dread of military execution may disperse a mob, or enforce the prompt payment of a sub- sidy; but to oblige men to be industrious and orderly in the walks of private life, we must re- sort to sanctions less severe, and more capable of frequent application. .<,... ^ * The notion of agdcultural labour being en- forced by the continual presence of soldiers in the field, is too evidently absurd to demand serious consideration. We need not resort to the peculiarities of the climate to shew the utter impracticability of such a mode of coercion; and as to punishment for past idleness (of which we have shewn the inef!icacy in the case of men brutaliised by having been driven;) what pains could military power hold out as oi*dinary means of discipline, more formidable than the cart whip! The sentence of a Court Martial could not be more prompt or more decisive than the mandate of the Overseer. To maintain however large armies perma- <* neatly m. t? [ 72 ] nently on the spot, though probably ineffectual, as well as grievously exhausting to the state, would be undeniably necessary; for it would be preposterous to suppose that negroes once free, and bent again by force of arms to the yoke, could be kept in subjection by means less vigo- rous. The case of Ireland, where for purposes far different indeed, means in some degree similar have been necessarily employed, may in this re- spect faintly illustrate that of St. Domingo. Independently of all other considerations, the great bond of submission upon the minds of the negroes, is if I mistake not, dissolved for ever. . A strange but fortunate prejudice, the crea- ture of early terror, fostered by ignorance and .habit, secured in great measure the tranquillity of these colonies before their revolutions i and forms the great security of all the Islands where- in slavery still prevails. I mean that nameless . and undejined idea of terror , connected in the mind of a negro slave, with the notion of resists ancs to a white man and a master. It is not by comparing the temptations to dis- obey, with the pain of the worst punishment to be inflicted for disobedience, that the slave is kppt in submission; or prevented even from raid- ing his hand against his lord. The whip iu- .deed urges him to labour, and the fear of it may overcome the lassitude, or indolence of nature ; but that which makes him submit tu such disci- t 73 ] pline, subdue his naturally impetuous and vindic- tive feelinf s, be implicit in his active obedience, at ^east while under the eye of a master, and submit to privations and restraints innumerable^ without a murmur ; in short, that which supports the master's authority, and ensures his safety, is a strong and indefinite terror, Avhich the slave from his earliest years, or from the period of his im- portation from Africa, has attached to the idea of active resistance ; and which has been strength- ened daily more and more, by habit, iind the universal example of his fellow slaves, f ? Like other phantoms of the imagination (as for instance the fear of spirits) it is not to be corrected by reason j and like our sense of the sublime, it operates even with greater force from its obscure and indefinite nature. Without the solution wliicli this principle af- fords, the i^assive submission of the West India negroes to a very small and often unarmed mino- rity of AV'hite men, and the extreme rarity of any act nf individual vengeance on a master, mouUI be •yvliolly inexplicable ; for in most of the Islands the law has aiMicxed no more d'*eadful mode of execution than hanging, either to lebellion or to murder • yet insurrections, especially in the old islands, arc very rare ; and the murder of a masler by his slave, a crime scarcely ever heard pf, except in a general revolt. 'fhes^ facts cannot proceed from the absence of resentful m j*^if .- : f i i^B'' ^ r* 'p [ 74 ] resentful feelings; for towards persotisof their own colour, negroes are uncommonly violent and vin- dictiTe ; and murder is among them no unusual crime» Nay, it has sometimes happened, that resentment of some great wrong received froiti a master, instead of leading to violences against him personally, has induced them to indulge the desire of vengeance at the expence of their town destruction, in order to deprive him of his property. Within a few years, and in a single island, three instances occurred of slaves putting* themselves to death, avowedly from this motive ; and in one case, the man while in great torments from the fractures and dislocations caused by jumping down a deep well, gloried in what he had done; telling his master with exultation, " fhat he had lost his most valuable slave.'* It is obvious that such revenge and despera- tion must often be fatal to the master, if some principle stronger than the fear of death itself were not his protection. It would be tedious to mention all the facts and considerations from which the existence of such a principle may be farther demonstrated ; but no man of reflexion can have resided long in the West Indies without perceiving it, and rely- ing on it more than on the laws or the govern- ment, for nis security. This principle of action, like most others, that have their origin, not in reason, but in ig- norance t 75 ] ttofatice and habit, x&ken once subverted can nt' ver be renexeed. The negro, who has been ele- vated to the same social freedom with his former master, and has drawn aside the veil by which the weak pedestal of former authority was con- cealed, can no more regard the one with a super- stitious reverence, nor yield a blind obedience to t'le other. The spell is finally dissolved. More especially must this prejudice be inca- pable of renewal, when the practical lesson has been, not only that white men and masters may be resisted, but even confronted in arms, with- out those nameless dreadful consequences at which the soul was formerly appalled. It will be no less impossible again to breathe into such men the terrors which kept them in subjection, than it would be to renew in a philo- sophei the superstitions of the nursery, so that he should again believe in giants and magicians ; or to frighten a man of mature age with the rod of his schoolmaster. If bowed anew under the for- mer system, they will submit perhaps, while rea- son shews them the impracticability of resist- ance, but no longer ; and it is not this prudential thinking, obedience, that will enable the white Colonists to maintain their authority, with their former small proportion of numbers, and scanty means of military defence. I consider this change in the ideas^ of the ne- groes as the most invincible of bars to the per- manent ft \ "X [ 76 ] ni«nent restitution of the slave system in the French Islands: but the revokition that has taken place in their habitSy is a concurrent and very formidable obstacle. The weight of the chain so long thrown off would now be felt with an increased and intolerable pressure ; and a rest- less desire to escape from it, would probably be superior to the apprehension of the most real and imminent dangers of resistance. Insurrection therefore would long continue to find frequent and bloody employment for the large garrisons of Guadaloupe and St. Domingo ; till the Mother Country, wearied with the ex- pence of life and treasure in recruiting them, would relax in her efforts, and successful reheU ]ion give a new birth to negro freedom. ,,>,•• . • . ■ 4. , V -V -v-iq4 '^^'i ^ i--^ . I ^'"* ^c. &c, ""■,■;» i.J I . * . < .;. ^' ,,•.'•*'■». , > *'■ > I • • f ., ..il LETTER IIL 'ti f ^'.&:]fi [ 77 ] m^ LETTER III. _i.tr- j..--.i,t '. 'u'y ■ Sir, ■;.,,:;,.;* !'■.«» I Uv 1 1 :i:m :,'^Ui -V '' Hji ;.>J .j>lrj' i\>-j.'|' i- HAVE thus far endea- voured to illustrate the true nature of the con- test in which France has probably embarked ; and have laid before you some considerations from which the best conjecture may be formed of the immediate event ; especially in relation to that great Island, which may perhaps be destined to be the cradle of the liberty, of the African race, as it formerly was of their bondage, in the West- cm world. To prove that the restitution of the yoke they have broken will not be easily effected, Avas a necessary preliminary to that which is more im- mediately the subject of our present enquiry, the determining what consequences interesting to Great Britain this great enterprise is likely to produce, ' But >,'< A I m m I 4 El:! [ 78 } But that branch of our subject appeared to me to have a further, and substantive, import- ance. The policy of this country since the pre- liminaiies of Peace were signed, seems to have been greatly affected by an opinion that a coun- ter-revolution in the French Colonies, was an object not only desired by the Republic, and sa- lutary to our own West India Islands, but a highly practicable work ; and I know not to what dangerous lengths the same groundless expecta- tion may continue to prevail and to influence our public counsels*. I proceed to consider first the probable effects of a failure in this undertaking ; and shall next enquire, what consequences are likely to flow from the opposite, and more unlikely event, that of its success. In contemplating the former case, the public opinion seems so far to have anticipated my con- * It seems probable that but for such an expectation France would not have been permitted to send such vast armaments to tbe West Indiesi before a Peace was definitively sealed. On the prudence of such a permission I presume not to offer an opinion, as the grounds of it are not yet before the public. Much con- fidence is due to the prudence of administration, and it is presumable that this courtesy to the Republic was founded upon state, or even a community of free negroes under tJie government of France, in the West Indies, as likely to prove fatal in its consequences to our sugar Colonies. The danger of such a political phenomenon ia point of precedent, on which great stress has been laid, is sufficiently obvious. But that dan- ger is not in my apprehension the greatest ground of alarm : for there is a state of extreme degra- dation in which man is little affected by politi- cal argument, even in the persuasive form of ex- ample ; and a jacobin would probably find the field-negro of Jamaica, a pupil less susceptible tlian even the Copht of Grand Cairo. But in the event here first supposed, Propa- gandists would soon be found, with physical force enough to break the chains of their sable brethren, and with arms to put into their hands; or at least with power to usurp the territory to which they belong, and give them masters of a new complexion. The natural and ordinary appetite in the foun- ders of an infant state, for enlargement of do- minion, would be whetted by the richness of the neighbouring spoil, by the facility of con- quest, and by a pretext which would give to usurpation the appearance of generosity and justice. If the little Grecian republics, thought it an honourable cause of war, to deliver men of the m Mi i mi?' I 'iX: t .11 [ 80 ] . the same extraction, from the domination of those whom tliey called tyrants ; how much more spe- ciously might the hostilities of the negro chiefs of St. Domingo be justified, by the degrading bondage of their African brethren \ Nor would policy fail to co-operate very powerfully with these motives. The security of their own freedom would hardly be compatible with the continu- ance of negro slavery in all the surrounding Islands ; and they would see in the bondage of Cuba and Jamaica, a yoke that would probably be refitted to their own necks, if the powers of Europe should ever be able to replace it. While, a skin, of the same tincture with their own, should every where else in the West Indies, and even in the skirts of the same visible horizon, be a badge of perpetual slavery, how could they possibly regard their white neighbours with confidence; or feel that they held their own new social character and privileges by a safe and peaceable tenure? The neutrality of Toussaint, from the time of the evacuation of St. Domingo by our troops to the end of the war, is no argument for the expectation of the same policy in future. It was the result of a compact made by him, in very critical and arduous circumstances : so at least we are warranted by strong appearances, as well as general and uncontradicted report, to be* iieve ; and that extraordinary man is said to be distin^^ [ 81 ] distinguished by inviolable fidelity to his en- gagements. ^"^^ But if he, and the people of St. Domingo in general, were weak enough to believe Great Bri- tain, sincerely disposed to favour the cause of ne- gro freedom in the West Indies, ney must be al- ready convinced of their mistake. They have seen the bar of our naval hostilities removed from the coasts and the harbours of France in order that naval armaments might proceed against them ; before notice of the Peace, should put them on their guard ; and this not only while they were observing a strict neutrality towards us, but while our quarrel with the Republic was not yet definitively ended. Tliey will know that the British Cabinet chose even to encounter some national anxiety rather than not acquiesce in a measure hostile to the negroes of St. Domingo. If still undeceived, it is probable they will not long remain so, unless you, Sir, and your colleagues should cease to behold with that complacency which has been hitherto manifested, this project of the Coui't of the Thuilleries. Situated as Jamaica is, it is scarcely possible, that in the approaching contest, we should ob- serve an exact neutrality of conduct in that Co- lony unless very rigid prohibitions, such as wiU not readily flow from the disposition which seems at this juncture to prevail, aie speedily issued and . „= '- 9 enforced. ^0 1 if if; m ■'; ':! ,11:^1 i I [ 82 J enforced. The. ships, of France will perhaps be refitted in the harbours of that island, or at least kindly received there; and from thence as con- venient magazines, the fket and army of St. Domingo, will probably draw many essential supplies. Shall we treat the resisting negroes with equal favor? I presume, Sir, you are not prepared to risque another war with France by acting on this occasion the pari she took with our own revolted colonies ; and if you were, I am sure that the people of Jamaica would not well second your intentions ; you will find it difficult even during this bcllum sermky to restrain them by the strongest interdictions from active co- operation with the assailants. ■ ^ »»» To a determined spirit of hostility against our Islands, the negroes should they triumph in the approaching contest will add new energies of cliaracter, and new means of annoyance. It is by a struggle for political independence, or so- cial freedom, that the warlike faculties of a people are most powerfully called forth, and the military spirit created. But for independency, the negroes of St. Domingo cannot properly be said yet to have fought ; much less for that far more interesting stake " private freedom," as qpposed to West India bondage. ^ They broke the yoke indeed by insurrection, ^d sooiQ barbarous cpnilicts ensued ; but the .wayi^ji^' V resistance [ «3 ] resistance of the masters was short, as well ad feeble ; and the struggle was no more fitted to foim them into soldiers, than the massacres o( Paris M'cre to discipline its ferocious insurgents. The resistance afterwards made to the British arms, furnished no doubt a better school ; but the cause was hardly understood to be that of free- dom, as opposed to domestic slavery. To restore the whips and the drivers, was not, in profession at least, the object of our invasion, and to reduce the interior of the Island, was hardly apart of our attempt. We seized on many of their ports, and their fortresses, on the coast ; but to the negroes of the interior the question might seem to be little more than whether the pennants of France or Great Britain should fly in tlieir harbours ; and in that question they, who naturally regarded all Europeans as enemies, and the French in ge- neral as exasperate*' foes, probably felt little in- terest beyond what their leaders cloathed with some shew of French authority, and wishing t ^ conciliate, the Republic, labour^^tl to inspire. Considerable bodies of ill-armed i oops were drawn together, and hemmed in our garrisons, within the walls of the fortifications which they occupied, or within such a narrow border of sur- rounding territory, as European soWiers could traverse by a single march in that cHmate : but it was as impossible for the negroes, destitute as they 4 w ^ <^ 1 N IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) '^. «^ ^ 1.0 ^ittl^ I.I Sf 1^ 12.0 u V Photographic ScMioes Corporation ^ ^ .^V v> ^ ^'^ ^4^% V i\ aiWMTr'MINriifiT \WIMTM,K.V. *4IM ^{S^ <^' ^ k \ f 84 r they trere of artillery and of most other means of regular warfare, to attack us in our fortified posts, as for our sickly and much divided forces, to march under a vertical sun, through that extensive country, in quest of an enemy in the open field. Regular hattles therefore were un- known and even skirmishes not very frequent.-^ From the time of our reducing the important places on the coast, to the final evacuation of them, the war resembled a long blockade : the invaders and invaded were for the most part alike inactive, and disease was the only, but the efi^ectual assailant, to which British courage and ' perseverance, were at length obliged to submit. That by these contests, and the subsequent civil broils, soldiers have been formed in sufiicient abundance to make the black colonists dangerous neighbours is not very doubtful: but if I judge rightly of the approaching struggle, military skilV and military habits will rise among them to a much higher pitch, and will be aided by a proud sense, not of equality merely, but of su- periority, in war, to the troops of Europe. Not only a spirit of conquest, the ordinary gro\^th of this character, may be expected tp follow ; but employment for the black legions will beqome necessary to internal repose. — Fot man, military man at least, is nearly the ^ame character between the tropics as in the temperate . li aone: 2one ; and St. Domingo like ancient Rome, or modem France, will have become a military Republic. It is needless to insist further on the dangerous consequences to be apprehended from the sup- posed triumph of the arms of the negroes, as they are on all hands perceived and acknowledged. But between the entire success of the pkns of France, and the total subversion of her authority and influence, there is a middle issue, to the pro- bability and the tendency of which the public -seems not to have sufficiently adverted : I mean that of a compromise, by which the sovereignty of the Republic may be acknowledged, and negro liberty at the same time maintained. There is a point beyond which ineffectual ef- forts to restore the former system, will probably not be extended ; and from the nature of the impending contest this crisis is probably not very remote. It may be accelerated, by a new revolution not unlikely to happen in the govern- ment of the Republic ; and by the natural disposition in the authora of a revolution to reverse the measures of their predecessors in authority. Now, whenever that period comes, it can hardly be supposed that France in sheathing the sword, will needlessly renounce the sceptre. Unable to restore th*^ planters, she will at least attempt [ S6 I attempt fo restore the pditical supremacy of the Republic ; and if the negroes cannot again be made slaves, she will invite them to enjoy theiif freedom linder ^e pirotectibn of the tri-colouted ^ag, like Great Britain, in the case of the North American Colonies, she will attempt con^ ciliation, when force is found ineHicacious, atid probably with better success; for a separation from the modier couniry in Europe, however de* Arable it may have been thought for the self'* dependeiit, and commercial ct^onies, of the Northern Continent, can never be the interest of a West India Island. . %. Frahce> in a word, will in the supposed event be glad to preserve the sovereignty of the Island upon terms to which the negroes will readily subscribe : they will continue free, but will ac<« kaD^rledge themselves French citieens or sub- jects, Qr let it here be supposed,, that my notions of the present design of the Chief Consul ^e un* founded ; and that these great armdfiicr^ts have been dispatched, pot to alter the condition of the n^roes, but merely to overturn th^ Consti^ tution and Governme^t of Toussaint; and let it also be supposed that this comparatively easy enterprise will be crowned with, immediate suc-> cess; and what M'ill he the obvious immediate consequence ? |n this case, as well as in the fovnier^ . . [ 87 1 v former, we have ^r natural enemy, the gigantic rival of our greatness, placed in a capacity of ah« noyance, not less formidable, than unparalleled, t Behold in this single Island a poptalation, of at least two hundred thousand adult male negroes* of whom probably, a third part are already inured iti some degi-ee to arms, at the door tf our most valuable settlement, and ready to assist the ambition of the Republic for any purpose not adverse to their freedom, but most of all for that of conquering the slave-peopled islands o£ , Great Britain ! vi •■1 ■ in I * This to European ideas may appear too large a proportion of men, if the whole population does not exceed half a million ; but let It be observed, that there is always a vast disproportion of numbers between the sexes among the colonial negroes, the males being by far the more numerous, and that the rising ge* neration is unhappily very thin compared to the parent stocks. Both these known circumstances of West India population are most prominent where the recent importations from Africa have been greatest; and these were unusually great in St. Do. mingo within a few years inunediately preceding the revolu. tton. In a general account of the state of the West Indies published in 17711 there is an account of the population Of the French part of this Island wherein the slaves are stated to amount to 250,000 only, though the author evidently wishes to give strong ideas of the importance of the Colony ; yet by official returns in IJ9^ which have been already noticed, they amounted to 480,000 and Mr. B. Edwards gives that as the true number about the same period* Hist, of St. Domingo, page 10. - Hitherto, '.: i [ 88 1 ' Hitherto, the West India Colonies, have fuiw nished few or no resources of offensive war to their European masters. They have in their strongest state, demanded protection, rather than ministered assistance. Endangered within by a source of perpetual insecurity, by a systCfU which precluded the hope of voluntary fidelity in the great mass of the inhabitants, all that the free Colonists could be expected to do for the parent state in war, and more than they have always effected, has been to guard themselves by militia establishments, from insurrections of their slaves; and to second, in some small mea^ sure, the effoits of their European defenders^ in repelling invasion. Many an effective regiment has been reduced to a mere name in their hospitals ; but not one regular corps, till the alarming exigencies of the late war, led to the before untried expedient of enrolling a regiment or two of negroes, was ever raised in the West Indies. Instead therefore of strengthening the belligerent arm of the parent state> they drained away its vigour; aonies powerful at the opening of !^ campaign, have been divided and broken down to recruit their garrisons, or to suppress their revolted slaves. With such imbecilities and disadvantages, which Great Britain must still continue to' sius- tain in her colonics, let us for n moment con- ' i ti-a^t the new situation of France on the sup* posed pacification with the negroes. ^ r. She will stand in need of no armies from Eu- rope. The diversion of force in this quarter, the enormous expence, the danger of the pas-» sage, with the dreadful mortality, to which Eu- ropean troops are subject in a West India cam- paign, may all be saved. St. Domingo alone, will furnish disposable troops enough, to out- number the utmost collective force which we can possibly spare for the defence of all pur islands; of troops, to whom the peculiarities of %he climate are salubrious, instead of destructive; and marches under a vertical sun neither exhaust^^. jng nor laborious. ,4 Nor will her future hostilities be subject to any diversion by the defence of those Colonies of her own m which liberty shall remain. Their internal strength will bid defiance to invasion, as in the late war we have too fully experienced. What is still more formidable, the attractions of her new system, and the very complexion of her troops, will ensure to her in every slave Colony she invades, numerous and irresistible allies, ready not only to fa^ilitatCi but to perpetuate her con*> quests. .^ I challenge any man, acquainted with the Wfst Indies, or with the history of warfare in that country, to point out any possible means by ^ . which pi n Hi'' i m I 90 ] V'hich our islands, and especially Jamaica, could be effectually defended against such fearful odds as these ! Of the inclination of France when opportu- nity may invitCj to strip us of our sugar Colo- nies, little doubt can be entertained ; but in the case supposed new motives would arise to strengthen the ordinary impulses of commercial rivalship and ambition. ' '* We suppose her* baffled in thtf attempt to re- store the agricultural wealth of St. Domingo, and obliged to acquiesce in its remaining for a long time barren of almost all but mili- tary advantages. Without the produce of this great and fertile Island under industrious cul- ture, competition with Great Britain in the sugar markets of Europe will be impossible ; and the consumption of France herself, must in a considerable degree bfc supplied by the British Planter. Is it likely then, that she will suflfer us to retain such an ascendancy, and such gol- den advantages, at her expence, when the means of wresting them from us- will be at once easy and obvious ? No ! From the moment that St Domingo is found incapable of being speedily restored to its former value, the rich Island of Jamaica, will become an object of jealousy and envy that France wfll not have justice or mode- ration enough to resist; an(\ will be thought •' perhaps t ' * f I ■4 t 4 •i 4 I I 4 [ ^i 3 j)erhap8 a reasonable indemnity for the ir- reclaimable state of her o^n Colonies, pro- duced in some measure as it may seem to have been, by the maritime hostilities of this coiin* try. ■ ■ ■' .^^^-■--'; ** She cut us off from our Colonies" might: the French Politician say of Great Britain ** while '* our influence or our arms might have reftiedied ^ the recent effects of insurrection ; she ceased ^ to do so, only when those effects were incttr- ** able; it is just that she should furnish an in^ ♦* demnity. Instead of a colony of lahourers, '* she has allowed us to regain only a colony "" of soldiei-s. We have found the plough-share ** beat into a swOrd ; and must m;ike the only *' remaining use of our dominion, by employing ^* that sword against her. Since the nfegroes ** will not resume their hoes, let usuvail out-' •* selves of their muskets. By means of thesfc " African auxiliaries, we shall womid Carthage " in the most vulnerable side, cKp the wings ** of her commerce, nnd enrich oui'sclvcs with "her spoils!" '"''* Against the injustice of this language, I ftar the morality of a French statesman would not very strongly revolt; and to its policy, it seems not easy to find a very satisfactory objection. Were there even no expedients to prevent the en- franchisement of the Jamaica slaves from being ftn immediate result of the supposed Conquest; and "^^'•^'^ . ; supposing f m I' ill ) -' 1 supposing that no advantages, would, in that case, redound to the French comnjerce or re- venue ; still a severe blow would be given to the resources and the power of Great Britain, and to that decided maritime superiority, which is at once the curb and the humiliatiou of the Republic. .,• How far reluctance to enter on a new war, would for a while counterpoise these temptations, I leave to the consideration of those who are best qualified to estimate the general probabilities of an abiding pacific disposition in the government of that powerful and impetuous people. But let it be taken into the calculation that the re-^sta- blishment of her West India commerce, and the retrieval of her colonial wealth, must have been leading motives with France in the late pacifica- tion ; and that in proportion therefore as these objects are fonnd unattainable, our security for her pacific views will probably be impaired. Wc may add, it will be still more diminished by a state of things which may furnish her with new and effectual means of annoying her old enemy in a distant quarter of the world. Instead of the love of general peace, proving a protection to Jamaica, the temptation offered by that Island may be fatal to the general peace. The defence of our wooden walls, will naturally present itself to an English mind, as a possible safeguard to our Islands; even under circum- stances [ 93 ] . Stances the most perilous. Of this dependence in the case supposed, I shall shew the extreme insecurity; but will defer that consideration till we have examined another source of dangers, to which the reasoning to be adduced will be equally applicable. Hitherto, we have supposed that France will not acomplish the restitution of negro bondage. Let us now suppose on the contrary, that this great counter-revolution will be fully effected. This is an event, to which the public mind has been industriously directed, as an object perfectly desirable for this countiy. " The res- toration of order, industry, and subordination, the subjugation of the refractory negroes, the " destruction of the revolutionary scourge, the " extinction of anarchy, of the jacobin spirit;" and many other specious descriptions, are em- ployed to pourtray this happy change, which yet has been shewn, to have no distinct and definite meaning in the minds of Europeans in general ; but which if mednt to imply the speedy res- titution of industry by force of arms, must ne-' cessarily imply in practice the re-establishment of the former bondage. '^ From this counter-revolution, we are taught ■9f Englishmen to expect none but happy con- sequences. " It is to put an end, to the dart'' gerous situatioTi of our own Islands !" It is «( it \i ti an rt X 9* ] ■ (C an object, that the British Ministry must se* cretljf if not openly Javour ; which if they do not actively promote^ they must at least cordi* ally desire r ,-^,^ 5,iThe confidence with which such notit)ns are asserted, is not greater than the credulity with which they are recieved; thou^ to a man who extends his researches an inch below the surface their rashness and unsoundness, are most evident. We have seen the formidable difficulties, tliat must attend the subjugation of the negroes, if ever finally 5;ubdued ; and it has I trust, been satisfactorily proved to you, tliat supposing such an object attained, nothing less than the conti-* imal presence of an irresistible military force^ can maintain the restored authority of the mas-* ter, or prevent the most dreadful insurrections^ . Now France like Great Britain, formerly main- tained but slender garrisons, in her Islands, in time of Peace. In general they were indeed lather stronger than our own; but not more than s^iHcient to secure their most important for- tressei} from sudden assault, and by no meau» 9uch as to afford the means of any important ex- terior enterprise. ;^jl}ence the chief security of the two Powers- 9^ to their sugar Colonies, on the breaking out of war. For the purpose of West India con- quest, armies were to be sent from Europe ; and time was consctjuently given to the opposite Power {. 95 J Power if vigilant, to make preparations for de- fence. By a kind of tacit compact, meanft of offensive warfare were not provided in that dis- tant quarter, except during a^ctual hostilities; and had a considerable force been sent out by either Power during Peace, the other would have remonstrated, and on failure of immediate satisfaction, would have felt sufficient ground for counter-preparation at least, if not even a jus- tifiable cause of war. But France now, will have an unanswerable pretext for increasing her West India garrisons to any extent she thinks proper: she will even be under an evident necessity, of maintaining in that quarter at all times, a regular force large enough to be utterly inconsistent with the safety of the British Islands. You admit her right to send to St. Domingo before the sword is well sheathed, 25 sail of the line, and 25,000 men, because the re-establishment of her colonial gavernment requires it. How then can you deny her an equal right, to maintain for the necessary su|^ort of that government when re-established, whatever force the case may fairly seem to require? To call on her to reduce her garrisons, to the old peace establishment at St. Domingo, Guadaloupe^ or Cayenne, would be a demand to give up anew her slave system in those colonies, and consign the planters to the horrors of a second revolution. Admitting Mi ■ It i / '- I 96 ] Admitting that she has a right, to inaintaifl there a force hitherto unknown in timea of Peace, what limits can you put to its dimen- sions? Who but ttie governments of those respective Colonies, or the cabinet with which they correspond, shall Judge of their interior si- tuations, and of the degree of latent danger to which they may be exposed from the the embers of the newly-e?rtinguished fire? Are we to appoint secret committees to enquire into the plots of the French si ives ? If not, by what means'shall we determine, how many thousand troops are necessary at Guadaloupe, aqd hovr, many tens of thousands at St. Domingo, for the purposes of internal security ? , If a French Minister wanted an argument to enhance those necessities, he might remind us of the Maroons of Jamaica, or the Char- ribbs of St. Vincent ; and ask us to count our losses by those petty enemies, whose expulsion only could make us safe, before we prescribe limits to her, in the means of overawing and coercing half a million of negroes ! It is needless to suppose however, in the Republic, any wish tu exceed in her establishments the real exi- gencies of the case. Without any insidious use of her new situation in the Antilles, it will oblige her to become formidable there to every neighbouring Power. Without any hostile views, u S( tl w w m fr e\ «v ' • ♦■■» . U ♦. .1 [ 97 ] \ views, she must prepare the means of irresistibly futurie hostility, I pretend not to determine, to what extent her permanent military establishment must ne** cessarily be enhanced : it is sufficie?it to say^ that beyond the defence of th^ old fprtificatipns, endangered perpetually by a new internal en?my, she must establish and maintain a military orga- nization in the interior, ramified enough, and etrong enough, to overawe the slaves, and togiv$ security and confidence to the masters. Without this, tlie counter-revolution we are supposing would be fruitless of every thing but blood ; and with a permanent force like this, at her com* mand, no hostile neighbour cpuld be safe for a moment. Dr jghts that would hardly be missed from such an establishment, would be ade-* quate to oveipower the strongest garrison we ever maintained during Peace, in the largest of our Islands. \ But a more alaiming considemtion still, arises from the nature of the force of which these new and formidable establishments will certainly in a great degree be composed. That the fnll sue* cess we are now supposing to have crowned the plans of the French Government, can possibly be attained, without a coalition with ihe negro chiefs, and the assistance of large bodies of their troops, it would be preposterous to imagine. How then arc those important auxiliaries to be . H disposed its I il t 98 ] disposed of, when the arduous immediate object shall be accomplished? Will France disband these sable legions ? Will she tell them to pile their krms in the cane pieces, and submit their backs again to the drivers ? That they would acquiesce in such treatment, is not movt improbable, than that the government of the Republic would be fash and weak enough to tnake the experiment. But France will have learnt to appreciate their value as soldiers too well to wish to reduce their numerous and dis- ciplined battalions. She will see in them, not bnly the necessary support of interior goverii* ment, but the irresistible instruments of her iimbition, and the potentiality of soon wresting ifrom this country the whole of her West India dominions* Rely upon it then Sir that generals Toussaint, Christopher^ and Moses, will not be cashiered; and that France will in future not only outwing you enormously in her military establishments in the Western World, but that her soldiers will be cf that formidable descrip» lion, whose native superiorities I have feebly at- tempted to delineate*! • A firitish bfficer wt^o was tak6n prisoner on his passage frorrt Jamaica and carried into St. Domingo, has published a short narrative of his adventures in that island, and he states that he law Toussaint review near the Cape 60,000 well disciplined negrodsi (See Major Rainsford'* Narrative.^ Let iU*fe.Jx.y iw 1? I 99 ] Let us now take down the map of the West Indies, and cast our eyes on the different geo- graphical points where these dangerous establish-, ments will be fonned. In the fnst place, we have Cayenne, a settlement to windward of all our Islands and within a short distance of some of the most valuable. Next, Guadaloupe, a large Island in the very centre of the Charribbean chain, and surrounded by British Colonies, at the distance of «i few hour's sail : — Lastly, the great Island of St. Domingo, now \vholly belonging to France, from which the shores of Jamaica, can be seen, and can be invaded by a passage before the wind, to be made in a single night. Had France selected three military stations, as places of arms, and of rendezvous, for the future conquest of all our sugar colonics, she could not have chosen better. Her invading Power, M'ill stand on tiptoe at the very threshold of every West India Island we possess, ready to rush in upon the first order for hostilities. > Her military establishments at Cayenne, and Guadaloupe, indeed, will naturally be much less than in the vast Island of St. Domingo ; but when compared to the ordinary means of defence, in our small adjacent islands, >vill be equally irresistible. An effective company of regulars for each Island of the windward and leeward Charibbces is more, than in times of M peace :)i [ 100 ] peace we have usually maintained. Some of the smaller Islands, have often been left in the late Peace, without any European troops at all; and as to the petty militia furnished by a scanty free population of a few hundred families, it was rarely called out, or embodied, except dur- ing actual war. What hope could be founded on means of de- fence like these, against such an army as even Guadaloupe, would now at a day's notice be able to furnish for invasion? To rivet the chains of near 100,000 negroes, will probably require even there, many thousands of regular troops ; of whom, for the brief and important purposes, of a coup de main against our Islands a considerable part might be drawn from gar- rison service. To keep in subjection the re-inslaved negroes at Cayenne, and guard the large, and now much- extended limits of that colony a force equally great will in all likelihood be employed, as the continental situation, makes insurrection there peculiarly easy, and its suppression extremely difficult.* Grenada, would probably give the first temptation to hostile enterprise, from thi^ quarter; and let the history of her late insur- rection witness, how hopeless would be her on- • dinary means of resistance. Thus, n'ithout • The settlement properly called Cayenne is divided only by a small river from the Continent of Guyana, ,* . , taking to t 101 1 taking into account the force of Martinique, and the other Islands, restored by the peace to France ; which Avill also probably soon be gar* risoned by negro troops ; we should find in every quarter dangers of the most imminent kind. I confess to you Sir, that when I contemplate this prospect, I am astonished to hear the success of the French expedition spoken of as an event for which Englishmen are to put up their vows. The planter's property might indeed be as safe in Ja» maica under th& French flag, as in Demerara un- der the Dutch; and if the Consul cordially shakes hands with negro slavery, I know not why this prospect should even check the same spirit of speculation that lately poured millions of British capital into the soil and the slave markets of colonies soon to revert to an enemy. But to the general interests of the empire, there is a calamity far more fatal than even the dreaded progress of negro-liberty ; and that is, the addi- tion of our West India possessions to the other conquests of France. For the country at large, it would be a less dreadful evil, that our sugar co- lonies should be impoverished or ruined by re- volution, than "onquered by foreign anns ; and less injurious that they should be usurped by a negro state, than by the government of the great nation. How then Sir arc these great public dangers to be averted ?. ? Ar(j m II L 102 J Are we permanently to garrison all our Islands with troops numerous enough to defend them against these new means of invasion, which wl.l be perpetually in their vicinage? The whole standing army of Great Britain, would pro- bably be too small for the purpose; and the ra- vages of disease would require its triennial re- newal. A land press would be necessary, to re- cruit those fatal garrisons ; for death would re- duce our regiments, faster than voluntaiy en- rolment could supply them with new levies. *' But onr FlQetSf*' it may be said, " our ever victorious Fleets, are an adequate security." The most obvious and unanswerable objection to this ground of confidence is, what I shall presently consider, the enormous and ruinous waste, not only of the wealth, but the maritime force, of the country, which such a scheme of permanent de- fence in that climate would involve. But those who think our widely dispersed sugar colonies could be effectually defended by naval force alone, against dangers threatening so continually, and from so many neighbouring points, as in the case now under consideration, have paid very little attention to the history of West India warfare; or to the general nature of maritime defence. . I believe that were any one of our brave and intelligent sea officers to be asked his opinion on this point, the answer M'ould be, that he would not engage with the strongest Britisli squadron •|;\ that 4 a„ r»_ ^ [ 103 ] that ever cruized between the tropics, perma'* iiently to prevent under the circumstances here supposed, thf invasion of Jamaica alone. Nor do I speak here with any vie^*' to opposition by s^ hostile fleet large as that lately dispatched fron\ France ; but desire the adpdission only, th?it there will be in the harbours of St. Domingo, vessels or boats of any kind capable of transporting troops across the calm and narrow channel which dif vides that Island from Jamaica ; For with naval means contemptible like these even, an in* vading army, might be wafted over by night to its destined point, eluding the vigilance, or by the aid of known winds and currents, mocking the pursuit, of the best conducte4 squadron. By detailing geographical circumstances which are sufficiently known, it would be easy tp prove the difficulty of defei\ding by a navaj force alone the coasts of a West India Island, But this detail would be tedious, and I conceive unnecessary. The fallibility of that species of defence every where, against an enterprising en?'- my, has in some degree been practically proved by the incidents of the late war, and is pretty generally admitted ; but it w^as demonstrated in cases more directly in point, by the West India conquests of the French under the Marquis d^ JJouillie in the war preceding the last. If my one supposes that these Islands cau u .W.I t 104 ] be eflbctually covered by a superior, or even An unresited, fleet; let him explain the reason why Gruadaloupe fiom its re-conquest by Vic- tor Hugues, to the end of the late war, was such a nuisance as it is well known to have been, to our trade in the Charribbean seas. Near 30 English pennants were at one tin.* flying in the neighbourhood of that Island^ and avow- fedly ordered to blockade it : And that the at- tefnpt wiis not long or closely prosecuted, could t)nly have arisen from the early discovery of its impracticability ; for no enterprise to be com- pared to this in importance, demanded or en- gaged, the services of his Majesty's ships on that station. Our men of war in fact were rarely, if ever out of sight, of the harbours of that hos- tile colony ; and af^er the glorious capture of La Pique they found no enemy bold enough to engage them : yet supplies of every kind en- tered the ports of Guadaloupe, and its priva- teers continually sallied out, to commit depre^ dations on our commerce, and returned with their prizes in safety. Victor Hugues at the same time sent out from this Island more than one petty armament, against our colonies^ and those of our allies. It would be a libel on the gallant British Admirals, who successively com- inainded on that station, to admit these facts, and at the same time to assert, that naval force alone can be expected effectually to preclude the invasion of Jamaica; an Island the defence of L 105 ] of which would be liable to the same general geographical difficulties, with the blockade of Guadaloupe, and which has a circuit of acces- sible coast, vastly more extensive. Let it be considered however that we shall not in the case supposed, have only a single Island to cover or to blockade, as was the case during a large portion of the late war, when Guadaloupe was almost the sole naval station of importance in the hands of the enemy to demand the vigi- lance of our fleets, in the West India seas; or from which invasion could be apprehended. Widely different will be the work of shutting up the enemy in the ports of all the different and much dispersed colonies whence his new found force may menace, including the wide-spread shores of St. Domingo ; or that of guarding by a naval force all our numerous Islands that will be continually in danger of invasion. For this arduous purpose, it would be indispensable that large squadrons should be maintained at the same time, on many different stations, from ^vhich they could not soon or easily be united ; from Barbadoes in the 59th, to Jamaica in the 77th, degree of west longitude. ■■!« ir^-*!. Have we even, any reasonable ground to pre- sume, that our entire mastery of these seas will in a future war be wholly undisputed ? That our naval force if collected, will be always superior in strength, as well as in courage and skill, to any hostile fleet that can be brought to encounter it, we h [ 106 ] we may indeed safely conclude ; but that France will be unable to maintain in any quarter, a fleet sufficient to protect an invading armament against any one of our divided squadrons, ia surely too much to be relied upon. Able to choose her point of attack, she will naturally select it where we are weakest; and were the war to lie only between St. Domingo and Jajnaica, it might not be too much to affirm that places of descent could be chosen, in the passage to which a covering fleet could not intercept the invaders, without either encountering fearful odds by an irrecoverable dispersion, or leaving other parts of the Island open and dcfenqeless. If more exact ideas of such nautical difficulties are desired, a reference to the oflicial accounts of the many sea engagements in the M'cst Indies, during the American war, but especially during the active campaigns of 1731, and 1782, may amply supply them, ... V, These observations might perhaps suffice to prove, that our wooden walls would be an inade-» quate and precarious safeguard, againait the dan- gers now in contemplation, i,.^ «, But the most disheartening circumstance still remains. For in either of the events supposed, these new dangers will be of a permanent, unrcf initting nature; and consequently will require continual preparation for defence, Whether wp shall have to stand on our guard, against au independent ►''>V-((VVf, [ 107 ] independent negro state, or against free negroes under the government of France, or against the extraordinary means of offensive war that a counter-revolution would necessarily place in the hands of our old enemy, the peril will be such as to threaten us every moment; and must impend over our colonies, as long as the same sources of belligerent strength, stand op' posed to the interior imbecility of our own pos- sessions. It is not an occasional eifort of the Republic in that distant field that we shall have to meet by cotemporary exertion ; but perennial dangers, against which our means of defence must be equally permanent, and kept up without inter- mission. Even during peace, they will scarcely be less necessary than in war; for unless the enemy could be bound to give us six months no tice previously to the drawing of his sword, de- fensive armaments could not cross the Atlantic before our most valuable colonies would be lost. The question therefore, is not, what security might be obtained, by means of such a fleet or such an army as we might send to that distant quarter for a single campaign, or on the spur of some short emergency; but what reliance can be placed on such garrisons, and such stationary squadrons, as we could afford constantly to maintain there. .i»**^« av-mni:-- - , Without [ 108 I Without presuming to calculate the value of Jamaica, and the other sugar colonies, and only assuming that it is something short of the full value of his Majesty's European dominions, in- cluding our constitution, our liberties and our national independence; I may infer that we cannot afford to protect these colonies at the expence of ruining our navy; and if not, to station permanently there fleets large enough for the purpose in question, would not be an allowable, supposing it might be art effectual expedient. It is reported, Sir, that you have dispatched a naval force to Jamaica, strong enough, to cope, if needful, with' the united squadrons of France and Spain which pre- ceded it. If such be the fact, I condemn not the precaution; but every British heart must lament its necessity. — One powerful enemy, disea£.% our brave tars will be sure to be as- sailed by, in that fatal region; and his ravages will not he the less destructive, because they may have no other foe to encounter. The hope of booty or of glory, the interest of a chacc, or the looking out for a hostile sail, will no longer aid their spirits against the gloomy spectacle of lickness and death among their mess-mates, and the enervating influence of the climate. The exemption of the French marine from the •am^d estructive evils, would aggravate the na- tional I 109 ] tional mischief of such a scheme of defence, if we should be driven to it as a permanent system^ Without keeping a single ship of the line in the West Indies, perhaps even without a hostile in- tention, the Republic would have the important advantage of diverting and consuming out na- val force, as well in peace as in war. — We should have to feed this Minotaur with our best blood continually. — ^We should probably be obliged to send out every year to be preyed on by tropical diseases, more seamen as recruits, or more entire new ships-companies to supply the waste of death, than were ever annually consumed before in our most bloody Maritime wars, and in all the collective services of our marine. When the mind contemplates this dreadful sacrifice, every other price to be paid for the future protection of our sugar-colonies seems of little account; — we sufficiently discern how well Africa will be avenged; and how probably those colonies, for the sake of which we have hugged fondly to our bosoms that deformed monstet. the Slave Trade, after its fjightful aspect has been laid bare before the eye of the national conscience, may soon by a righteous Providence be made the sources of our humiliation and ruin. And yet Sir, to you as the Steward of thft National Purse, I ought to add the important •jyx * - remark [ HO ] remark, that such great and enduring cfFor*:s of defensive preparation would not be less fatal to our finances, than to the lives of our brave sol- diers and seamen. — Did the Islands grow not only sugar but gold, they might be bought too dear; and the people of this country might grudge to give for the defence of those colonies another tenth of their incomes. Even another income tax indeed would pro- bably not long suffice for the new and enormous demands of these distant services. Nay, if we may judge of their expensivcness on so large a scale, by a reference to the charges of compara- tively trivial establishment^hitherto maintained in that quarter, all the reniaining resources of taxation in Great Britain, would scarcely be able long to supply this vast and unprecedented drain. The manufactures a|id agriculture of this Island, thj produce of our Colonies them- selves, the rich commerce of the East, and all the other tributes, which British industry and enterprise levy through a thousand channels, from the whole civilized globe, in aid of our na- tional revenue, might be devoted to West India security, and yet devoted in vain : — num.erous, various, and extensive, though they are, all might be absorbed in this insatiable gulph, without lessening the force of its devouring vortex. •harybdin dico ? Oceanus medius fidius it <( t'LV 1 [ 111 ] " 'ctj^ tidetur, tot res, tarn dissipitas, tarn dis- " tantibus in locis positas, tarn cito, absorbere ** potuisse /" We might throw the fate of our funds, into . the same scale with that of our Navy: while France, by merely tossing the sword of negro freedom, or negro force, into the other, would make it still preponderate. * * v 1 •"! lam, Sir, &c. &c ,pw,. r.. , Jk :•..,,», '>■' I — '' " ' ■ di j)ia ll m\ ■ ,V:^-' ■ /■' \ , ,^y^ 1 i '<*■'■:■}'<.': : i?n' 1 % i M LF/rrER I 112 1 .-v^a"iv-r,5,,. LETTER IV. m .v:r-,-.«iiVi l^;iy-;/ ;i''i.':i''j'. Kff . ,rr^'?>>';ftr Sib, ' Of the task which I prescribed to myself at the outset, one part only, but certainly not the least important, remains to be accomplished. I have endeavoured to unveil the true nature, and to point out the most probable immediate effects, of the French expedition ) and have shewn, though with powers very far inferior to the Important work', the new and alarming dan- gers to which in every possible event of the contest between France and her Colonial Ne- groes, the Western wing of our Empire will be exposed. It remains to enquire, as I proposed to do in the last place, " What measures should these prospects suggest^ to the prudence of the British Government T* . . . : If [ lis ] tf our approaching situation in the West ludies is likely to be thus peiilous, can that situation be averted by any means in our power to apply? Or if inevitably at hand, is there any preparative measure by which its ev'ls may be pjtlliated? That we cannot attempt to control the mea» Surcs which France may think he to adopt for the government of her Colohies, i^ sufficiently obvious. To my mind, and I would hope Sir, to your's, it is no less clear, that hci- hostile or coercive measures ought not to be directly oi' indirectly assisted by this country; but that we are bound by the plainest rules df policy, if not also in justice towards ToiiSsaint, to observe n. strict neutrality. Actively to obstruct the French operations, would be to provoke a new war, but to further them, would otily be to hasten, per- haps eventually to augment, the jeopardy of our Own Colonies ; and were our interference even to produce no worse effect, than that of exciting against" us the hatred and enmity of the Ne- groes, I should regard it as a disadvantage not to be counterbalanced, by the acquisition of a claim on the precatious gtatitude of France. An insidious policy like that which our old ene^ my practised against us in our quarrel M'ith Ame- rica, would ilUuit the character of Great Britain, Let us disclaim therefore every idea of lecretly » ' I , foinentiiiji' i [ 114 ] fomenting or prolonging the impending contest. But let us discern our own interest as well as our duty better, than to assist in hastening its termination. Though the protraction of discord or civil war in Guadaloupe and St. Domingo, is what humanity may regret, it is the best politi- cal hope of the British interests in the West IndieSc It will postpone at least, the perik of our Leeward Islands and Jamaica, and the call for arduous efforts to defend them. When the labors of the Republic end, our own must im- mediately commence. It is not impossible even, tliat if a sanguinary contest should be long maintainc'd between the JNIother Country and her black Colonists, the breach like that between Great Britain and Ame- rica may grow too wide to be closed, and a final se- paration may be the issue; and tliough this would be a case pregnant enough with danger, yet an independent Negro State, would certainly be a less terrible neighbour to the British Sugar Co- lonies, if irreconcilably hostile to France, than if under her influence, and willing to promote Jier views. V . That the suppression of Negro liberty is not less the cause of Great Britain than of France, is a proposiiion which our Creole fellow-subjectis very naturally wish to maintain ; but a British Minister will pause before he admits its truth, and niust feel that at least there are sacrifices at the I 115 ] expencc of which that cause ought not to be prci- motcd. He will therefore do well to remembef, that to accelerate the pacification of St. Do- mingo, would be to place more speedily at the disposal of the French Government at least 60,000 most formidable troops; to which Guada- loupe and Cayenne would probably add near 20,000 soldiers of the same ascription; not to mention the great European force by this time arrived in the Islands: and it will behove hint to consider what reasonable ground of reliance we have that this vast force will be afterwards disbanded, so as not to continue to be a mine under the foundations of our West India domi- nion, charged, and ready to be exploded, at the pleasure of the Republic. To the planters I admit that invasion will be less terrible by not bringing enfranchisement in its rear; but to the British empire at large, it will be small consolation that the tree of liberty is not planted along with the tri-coloured stand- ard, if those rich colonics are to be added to the dominions of an enemy. The evil in a pub- lic view, will not be less, by their passing unim- paired in agricultural wealth, and commercial importance into the hands of so potent a rival. Let not self-interested voices then, however loud, and however specious their representa- tions, prevail upon you to depart from the straight course of a sincere and exact neutra- , lity m4, [ 116 ] lity. Do not contribute to hasten that perilous position of our national interests in the West Indies, which civil war in the French colonies only can suspend ; and which at best will far out- grow your means of defensive preparation. Let not the plausible terms of " repressing rebellion," " curbing the revolutionary spirit," or whatever other glosses may be used to disguise the true nature of the impending contest, induce you to assist in building a scaffold in the new world, for that ambition which has already raised so co- lossal a fabric in the old. , With the moral merits of the question be- tween the two parties, we have no concern; nor is it clear that did they stand at our judgement scat, the cause of the Republic would be found 50 just, as has been of late industriously repre- sented by some whom dread of negro liberty, has made on this occasion ber advocates. But of this, wc arc certain, that supposing it right in France to re-establish by her arms, that bondage which by her laws she abolished, zee can have no duty in the case superior to that of watching* over our own interest and safety: nor is it less clear that the further extension of her power Is an evil, as nuich at least to be dreaded, as the independence or freedom of the negroes; and that therefore as she can give no effectual security for not using 10 our damage hvv approaching means of an- no^•a^ce, it would be madness in us to accelerate a crisis i' [ 117 ] ■ a crisis that may pbce them entirely in her hands. In a word, for the re-establishment of order in the French Colonies, we cannot afford to hasten tliat insecurity of our own which may oblige us to hold them in future, as tenants at M' ill to the Great Nation. I will insist no further on a point of policy, which with many, may appear too clear to have needed illustration. That you Sir, view it in the same light I shall be happy to discover by your measures ; but let me repeat, that a passive line of conduct in his Majesty's Government will pro- bably not suffice to ensure the neutrality of our Colonics ; of which the recent aid given to La- crosse, in some of our Windward Islands is if report may be credited,* a striking indication. Of active precautionary measures that may be taken, while the dangers that so awfully threaten our Colonies are yet suspended, I would next briefly speak. ' ^ - *' • That exterior means of defence can no longer be relied upon as formerl}', has I trust been suffi- ciently shewn. They would be certainly ineffi- cacious ; unless provided on a scale much larger than could M'ithout ruin to the general interests of the empire be long maintained. But the con- ^ Since this sheet was put to press, it is reported that ano- ther instance of this kind has occurred at Jamaica ; wheie a bare.faced annulling of recent engagements with Toussaint, is said to have been the first fruits of the notification of Peace with France. si deration Ml |ii. i*«itl 'M^. V* Ms' -1 p I: [ 118 ] .^ideration of cxpence apart, our Islands could not in their present state of interior imbecility, be effectually defended against the new and ever threatening means of invasion which, in either of the cases we have contemplated the Republio would certainly possess, by the arms of the M O' ther Country alone. Those new powers of hosti- lity, being indigenous in the French Colonies, would bie too abundant and vigorous, to be op- posed by the scanty and feeble exotics of Euro- pean growth, heretofore imported into our own. To contend with the Republic between the Tro- pics, without a large portion of the same home- made belligerent force, would be like beating up for recruits against Cadmus, who could raise armies in a moment from the ground, " Is it necessary then that large bodies of negrp troops, should be raised and maintained in Ja- maica and our other Islanids ?" If we would long retain the sovereignty over them ; if we would prevent their soon swelling the dominions of the French Republic ; that expedient, objectionable and hazardous though during the present situa- tion of their brethren in tho§e Islands it may be, must I think be adopted. To such a system of defence, were \t not a mattcrof strict necessity, there are I admit some serious objections; and the planters, even under thepresent circumstances, maybe expected pretty strongly to oppose it. If the enrolling the small negro force which at an arduous crisis of the late war [ 119 ] war was very pri^dently raised, gave general un- easiness in our colonies; how much more would the placing in them pennanent ganisons of the same dreaded soldiery, powerful enough to guard against these new dangers of invasion, be a sub- ject of disquietude and alarm ! It cannot excite surprize that the white colonists greatly distrust such protectors ; between whom and the slaves there must necessarily be the closest sympathy, and often the nearest domestic connections and attachments ; for it is impossible that the black soldier should regard the extreme and degrading bondage of his brethren M'ithout disgust ; nor is it easy to reconcile with that sense of honour in- separable from the profession of arms, and which while it excites, becomes also a necessary check, upon the military spirit, the contempt and abhor- rence hitherto attached to the colour of his skin by the people of whom he is to become a defender. By the colonial politician, it would by no means be thought a trivial objection, that this complexional opprobrium would be lessened; for however absurd and unjust it may appear to Eu- ropean ideas, he approves and cherishes the pre- judice; as a wholesome aid to subordination, and a cement of the master's authority. Nor can I in candour affirm, that the existing system, de- rives no support or security from this source : on the contrary must admit, that had not nature im- printed on the skin of the negro an indelible and striking mark of distinction from his master, or ' had M n n ^5(' ■y ^W m m m [ IGO ] h?id not prejudice converted it into a badge of infam}', as well as of servitude, the abrupt and monstrous disproportion of social condition be-r tween the white and black inhabitants of thq colonies, would either not have been formed, ox pould not so long have been maintained. But while we admit, that to preate a military orde^ out of the object cast, where theyeare oply two classes of society, divided by the imni< asurable distance between British liberty and the absence of every social right from each other, would no^ be Unattended with danger; there is surely roopi to hope, that this establishment if successiul, would gradually tend to the peaceable meliora-* tion of the social edifice; not only by softening the prejudices which stand obstinately in the way of improvement, but by giving such inter? nal means of supporting a vigorous police, as might lessen the danger of innovation The ground of necessity howevey is that on which the plan of defence may best be recom- , mended, and the only one upon which the plant ters can be expected to accede to it; and xi there be any truth in the remarks which \ have made upon the physical powers of negroes, opposed to those of Europeans in a hot climate. It is undeniable that this resort is not only necessary to save the lives of our soldiers and seamen, but to attain the end for which they have been hitherto sacrificed so freely. While encountered only by the best foreign soldiers of " the • [ 121 ] llie temperate zone, our brave regihients may be expected to conquer in any field, however disad* vantageous, as has recently been proved in Egypt ; but they arc men, and must yield to con- stitutional superiorities so many and so formi- dable as those with which they would now have to conflict in West India war; assailed as they would at the same time be by tropical diseases, and out-numbered to a fearful excess * 3ince at every step of our progress in this in- quiry, the extreme and unnatural bondage in which the great majority of the inhabitants of those populous Islands is held, presents some view of danger, or some obstacle to necessary measures of defence ; is there no possibility, it may be asked, of going to the root of every evil at once, and strengthening our colonies in the most effectual way, by interior reformation? That a reformation of that shocking and op- probrious system is loudly called for, by every duty which the Christian, or even the philoso- pher, acknowledges ; by every principle whichpo- liticians of all parties, or of any party, profess to hold wise or sacred; is indubitably true. But unhappily, there has been hitherto no disposi- »; • Since these sheets were prepared for the press, I have heard, to my aftonishmcnt, that the black regiments raised during the war are to be immediately disbanded. If so, it is a strong proof at once of theprcvulefice, and .the infatuation, of West India counsels. tion, \l • [ 12'2 ] lion, and there may now perhaps not be sufficient opportunity, to make it. There was a time, Sir, and to look back on it niay not be useless, when such happy reforma- tion might have been insured. Already I am firmly convinced, its progress would have been great; and a foundation would have been laid» whereupon at this hour of danger a system of in- terior defence of the most substantial kind might have been speedily and safely ei'cctcd. 1 allude to the first efforts made in parliament for an abo- lition of the slave trade ; which I fully agree with its promoters in thinking would have been the surest aud easiest mean of correcting all the evils attendant upon West India bondage. Had this great measure been adopted, even at the period limited for it by the votes of the Com- mons in 1 792, very diifcrcnt indeed, would have probably been the present situation of our islands. Perhaps the day is at hand when this retrospect will furnish an impressive lesson; but it is not yet arrived; and nations, like indivi- duals, seem fated to be taught by experience alone, the inseparable conncTtion between mo- rality and true wisdom. That flic abolition of the slave trade, would now bo in time to avert the impending mischief, is more than I venture to aftirm, supposing even that in the present temper of parliament it were u nicusiuc to be immediately expected. -■■ : . -• Nor [ 123 ] Nor dare I with any confidence hope, that even the perilous prospect now opened will lead to more direct measures of reform ; knowing as I do, how strongly they will be opposed by the private interests, and even the urgent individual neces- sities of the planter. For without now entering upon a subject too wide for incidental discussion in a work like the present, I must here affirm a truth, of which though disputed by abolitionists, the owncrsof West India estates in general are but too conscious " that the present large profits of a successful sugar plantation could not be ob- tained, if the condition of the slaves were to be effectually improved." Would to God that the interest of the master were really so involved in the well being of the slave, as has been asserted and admitted in Parlia- ment ! With his comparative well-being indeed, within such varieties as are to be found in the existing practice, it may and docs comport ; for self-interest has certainly by long experience discovered the lowest degree ot* subsistence, and the highest degree of labor, generally consist- ent with the preservation of life, ana the capa- city of regular work ; and the limits, thus as- jCertained have formed an average standard of treatment, from which a master certainly cannot deviate on the selfish side, without finding by rapid mortality, and the ruin of his gang, that his avarice was short-sighted and unwise. But i-;i ^1 €!% [ 124 ] But 1 speak of reformation that is not only to prevent the abuses arising from mistaken selfish- ness, cr from the necessities of indigent masters in particular cases ; but to improve the general standard, in point of comfort and happiness ; to diminish the ordinary exaction of labor, which i& far too great, and to increase the ordinary siibsistence, which is far too small, on e<'en the best regulated estates ; and it is of such improve- ments that I reluctantly feel it a duty to say, a due melioration of the lot of the numerous hus- bandmen would not leave a small West India farm to yield the splendid income it now does to the successful planter*. But however inveterate, anddeepl}- rooted in that o^^stinate motive, self-interest, the presentpractice may be, the extremes to which ic has grown cannot I firmly believe, be much longer maintained. Re- volution in the French Islands has eftected what the abolition of tne slave trade might have more happily performed. It has created an indispen- sable necessity for relaxing the chains of this • The probability and the importance of this fact rnay not suggest themselves at first sight, to those who are ignorant of the large proportion the number of workmen bears to the ex- tent of the soil in West India husbandry, and of the general mode of their nsaintenance. One negro to every acre of land is not more than a due proportion, for sugar estates in the old Islands, and they are chiefly fed and clothed by provisions and cloths imjx)rted from North America and Europe. extreme [ 125 ] extreme hnd brutalizing bondage, and improving the condition of the slaves. I will not say. indeed that it is impossible that our planters should find an alternative ; for I believe Buona- parte to be at present a sincere partizan of their favorite system ; and it is perhaps possible, though very unlikely, that he may be able to arrest the progress of negro freedom; but between such improvemeiit; and the holding their plantations under the dominion of France, they 'will sooa be driven to choose. Yes Sir, immediate reform or speedy loss of dominion, is the alternative now clearly set before us in the West Indies. ** But of what nature are the changes which may effectually correct the evils of the present system ; and that> speedily enough, to substitute internal strength and security for internal weak-- ness, before the approaching danger arrives.^" 1 adniii: that so compleat a reverse is not to be rapidly effected, without considerable difficulty and hazard. — Such rerormat:on however, is per- haps not impracticable, if sincerely and earnestly attempted ; and were the present sacrifices es- sential to such an enterprije to be (ordiidly ip.ade, it miglit still possibly be crowned with timely success. ,, No sucli pJ*^ry ostensible regulations how- fcver, as those with M'hich some West India as- semblies have lately amused the English public ' will vfM -\.M£ er ■i V H I 1. [ 126 ] will be now of any avail ! The miserable mockery of laws whose injunctions no one will enforce, and the breach of which can be ascertained only by the offenders themselves, will here produce no good, except that of convincing the impartial and considerate how much legislative interposi- tion is needed. The work to be really useful must go far deeper; and to speak out clearly, the state of the negroes must be gradually, but fun- damentally, changed, in all those essential pro* perties of their bondage, but especially in that dreadful peculiarity of it, to which in the early part of this address I have called your atten- tion. While Slaves are not only the absolute, ven- dible, property of the master, but fed, worked, anc .shipped at his discretion, the protection of the law, were any such sincerely provided, and any prosecutor fouid hardy enough to enforce it, would be like the redress bestowed by the Knight of La Mancha on the Peasant's boy, who after that famed avenger of wrongs had quitted the scene of discipline, was tied up again to the tree, and expiated together with the first offence, the more grievous one of having invited by his dies such dangerous and mortifying in- terference. Nor is it less apparent that while these poor Beings are worked under the whip of the driver, it will be equally vain to attempt to " • raise •"»— »■ [ 127 ] raise their characters into a fitness to he governed by municipal laws, or treated like rational agents*. Of the means by which these great radical evils might be removed, long reflection, aided by a residence of many years in the West Indies has given me some specific ideas ; which were there a hope of their being adopted in practice I should feel it a most pleasing labor to unfold. But their development here, while it would swell this long address to a most unreasonable bulk, would I fear be perfectly useless. Till i M n More satisfactory confirmation of these opinions cannot be desired than the testimony- of the late Mr. Bryan Edwards ; who in speaking of the attempt to regulate the exercise of the Master's absolute authority over his slaves by the Cede Noir of Louis XIV, and of its inefEcacy at St. Domingo, assigns these reasons for its failure. ** In countries where slavery is ** established, the leading principle on which government i« ** supported is feart or a sense of that absolute coercive «<- ** cettity fwhich leavin/t «• choice of actiotiy supenedet all question '* "f f'gkt' ^t is in vain to deny that such actually is, ** and necess? ily must l)e the case of all countries where sla- iercj)y « t( C( tt it ft tt ^'fl ffft'Htory •ftht Wftt ffiJitt, hv Mr, B. Ed-wafJsf vtl, 11. 565 >.| H i ill i*.ii *>.^^. *: Mil i'm '.i iH \;i-: rf fit f tli i 1 f 13^ ] all laws mack in the colonies, repugnant to Eng- lish statutes extending to or namihg them, are dcclarev to be oir . - WiMic such statutes remain unrepealed, I am at a loss to conceive how this riglit, exercised as it has be&n in numberless instances, from the vCiry first scttlemetit of our Colonies, and as well subsequently to, as before, the independ- ency of North America, can be decently ques- tioned in- Parliament. Yet if newspaper reports may be relied upon, it not only has been denied by some advocates for the Slave Trade in the House of Conmions, but men high in oftice have deprecated its discussion as the " stirrivg of a delicate conHituiional question ! ! /" If so ini"- portant a right was thought too much- to re- nounce for the preservation of America, and to the Assemblies of the great continental Colo- nies; but wft>s asserted and maintained to the end, in tlje face of rebellion; it seems strange tluit conq>laisance to the |>etty legislatures of tlic Suijfar Islands, should now lead a Statesman to speak of it in Parliament as a matter liable to doubt. * ■*''*!'t ^ri* ^>A !*>]":' ' ';v; t )!< VV^Mie it not for the undue consequeiVce that si\ch language, if really uttered, may > have given to this stiange claim of exclu^ive^ atttho-*. ritv in the. Assemblies, I should not think ib worth v of further remark : but were there room [ 133 ] for doubt, it would perhaps be conclusive to say, that the great principle upon Avhich the North American Colonics asserted their exclu- sive right to interior legislation, does not fairly apply to the case which we are considering; that qH a la\v to meliorate the condition of THE SLAVES. ^ : -A r ' f- , • The least resistible argument on the part of the Americans, wavS, that as they were not repre- sented in the British Parliament, and the mem- bers of that Assembly would not themselves be bound by the laws which they might frame for America, the being subjected to the unlimited authority of the legislature of the Mother Coun- try, would bereave the Colonists of the only se- curity the unrepresented have against oppression ; that of the law makers, being no less than their actual or virtual electors, subject in general to the same municipal duties or restraints which they may impose on the rest of the community. But this consideration, if applied to the great mass of the population of our Isl^ands, the slaves, will be found so far from warranting the same practical conclusion, that it will make the ab- surdity, as well as injustice, of excluding in fa- vour of their masters the legislative authority of Parliament, abundantly evident. Are the enslaved negroes represented in the colonial, as- sen^blie^?; ,ql^are thCf members of those bodies or their (Constituents subject to the same laws by . m; wliich ■«r ■*-«,■> .(If* <( I i I \ ^ ■.< iij, ;. M nil Xfi :Pll i m ''y,r . •«i! 5i [ 1S4 ] ^irhich this great class of the community ii go- veined ? Are not those Legislators, on the con- trary, men who upon all questions touching the jirivate relatioti of master and slave, are inter- ested parties ; and who are even inversely to be affected by the pl-oposed law, instead of being in the same mannei* subject to it; Since privilege to the slaves must necessarily in the same de- g^ree be restraint updn the master; And fresh re- trairtt on them^ were there room for it, increase of his authority? The West thdia Asseinbliei then would clairh this concession denied to North America, in di- iiect opposition to the great principle of reason and justice on M^hich it was in that * - tinct IS, [ 135 ] tinct, from that of the master. He is admitted so far to have claims on the legislative power of the State ; and the single question is whether Par- liament is bound by constitutional principle, to refer those claims to an assembly of masters, in derogation of whose absolute authority they are advanced. I maintain therefore Sir, that were this claim of exemption from the authority of Parliament as well founded as it is obviously the t«verse, the case of the slaves ought to form an exception to it. =*«^ "* >- That the Imperial Legislature has an incon- testable right to make laws for the government of the Colonies, in some cases at least, is admit- ted even by those who dispute the univeraality of that right the most strenuously. " The Colonies (says Mr. B. Edwards*) "readily admit they stand towards the British Legislature, in the degree of subordination, which implies every authority in the l&tter, essential to the pre- servation of the whole ; and to the mainte- ' nance of the relation between a Mother Coun- try and her Colonies." And the same author admits, that this constitutional right is not li- mited by any known or general boundaries ; but depends upon the nature of the particular cir- cumstances that may call for its exertion. " To ** ascertain (says he) " the various contingen- (( (( (( <( (( ^ i. I i; ' 'r. .1 fell 4 '! ,>.h t^ . • n History of the West Indiesj vol, ii. 861,-2. « CICS Plt"IWll •( i^ «!•' i..:t )ill I It I' } f f' a K <( I 138 ] cics, and circumstances, wherein, on the prhi-? ciples stated, the British Legislature has, and has not, a right to interpose, is perhaps im- possible; because circunistances may occur to render its interposition necessary which ean- *^ not be foreseen;"* and he cites Governor Ppwnall's ppiiiion to the same effect. Upon such concessions, unwilling and sparing though they are, the right of Parliamentary in- terposition to reform the system of. slavery, can- not well be denied ; for first, ve have in this case an emergency of nq trivial kind ; and such as might well justify the exercise of a superintend- ing power reserved for difficult and extraordi- nary occasions. If to redress the wrongs, or me- liorate the deplorable condition, of sevenreighths of his Majesty's subjects in the Sugar Colonies, when bpth reason and experience demonstrate they have no relief to expect from the Assem- blies, and when their hard lot is not without some colour of reason asCiibed to Parliament itself f be not a purpose weighty and necessary enough ,^- >#:»»*- Ir • History of the West Indies, vol. ii. 365. + Of the Legislative sanction given by Great Britain to the slave trade the anti-abolitionists have made great use ; and it has been hastily inferred that the bondage of the Co- lonies has received the stamp of the same authority ; but the fact seems to be, that Par"' :nent till the present aera, never enquired into what state the African exiles of which it autho. rised \ 137 ] to justify such an interposition, I am at a loss to fancy any circumstances that would in this view {junction the exercise of this acknowledged extraordinary power. If this be not really " dignus vindice nodus," let a stronger case be detined. But secondly, here is also a case in which the Mother Country has herself a most important and direct interest, in the proposed subject of legislation ; and not only so, but to use Mr. Edwards's words, the reformation in question is become necessary " to the preserva- tion of the whole common interest," and ^o the *' maintenance of that relation" which sub- sists between Great Britain and these Colonies : for that his Majesty's sovereignty over them is r \ngered by the present condition of the h.^ , cs, in consequence of the new situation of the French Colonies, has I trust been demonsti-ated ; nor is it less clear that the Mother Country has an interest in correcting abuses of which the effects must fall with a most grievous pressure f-^^Htpj::' i^ftf .'UTf, .- ■ ;• , •> I' .'iHt < rised the deportation, were carried. From the colonial acts of assembly no such information could be obtained ; for how- ever surprising it may appear, no positive law has introduced or defined this strange and unprecedented relation between master and slave ; but its legality wholly rests, in all the Co- lonies I am acquainted with, on a kind of lex non scripta, or custom, founded in the rudest period of their history, by the barbarous Buccaneiers who first settled the oldest of our West ladia IsJands. WTf* -.'f /■: 6n viis;i •if! V ISF* ■ t 138 ] twi tlie revciiue and defensive resdtitccfs of tiie empire. i Indeed Sir, when I tfegard the force of the latter consideration, it seems hardly to be appre- hended that the objection I am combating v/il| ever again be advanced ; for surely the experi- ence of the late war has sufticiently proved, had it been doubtful beforcf, that of a bad interior system in our Colonies the penalties must chiefly be borne by those who are represented in the Imperial Parliamenti What, durirg the late ar- chious contest, or at least after its two first cam- paigns, so fatally diverted our efforts from Eu- ropean to trans-Atlantic War, but the insecurity &f our West India Islands ? And bv what were they chiefly endangered but their own bad inte- rior policy ? There was I admit conflagration in their neighbourhood, but the i^erii chiefly arose from their own combustible texture. Except a tew miserableprivateerSyahostilerlag was scarcely to be seen in their seas; and the governments of ♦he French Colonies were not in circumstances to attempt invasion on any but the minutest scale. If a few boats full of negroes were sent by Hugues to Dominique, St. Vincents and Grenada, that was the utmost extent of his offensive eflibrts; and yet, what an enormous UIa ersion of British force was long produced by them ! With how much bf our bravest blood, not indeed shed by the s>\ovd, but fatally polluted by disease, were *.'* these [ 13£) 1 'tl:fse conternptible sparks extingtiished ! llad not the great ma89 of the people in our IsUind$ been in a state that precluded all hope ofMeWiy, the smaliegt bf those colonies might have bidden defiance to such feeble jiowers of invasion stt the enemy possessed. Nor can it be saidj that this was a peculiar situation not likely to recur ; unless all the pre- mises opened in a fotmer part of this address tan be denied; or unless it can be demonstrated that the infant Hercules of negro liberty will be effectually slaughtered in his ctadle. On the feontraryi it has been proved that the weakness of our own Colonial system, is likely to be con- trasted by hostile energies still more powerful in tevery future war. Should then Sir, this essential right of legisla- tion be still denied ; should none of the other considerations I hi^ve urged, suffice tc silence kelf-interestcd objectors, I would produce t6 th m the enormous returns of mortality in our fleets and armies; with the equally er ormous ac- counts of West India expenditut^; and bid them read there the title deeds of this Parlia- mentary authority. If more >vere still M^antingf, I ivould request them to read the St. Vincent and Grenada Loan Acts, now recently renewed, and to calculate how much must be ultimately lost to the nation, and how much u^.s added to the public burthens, by raising at a most critical •^'^>^'n-f and i 1 V ,, I 1V % Ktaa lt.\ II ■:i I '! [ 140 ] and dist jssful period, the millions thereby lent to repair the effects of insurrection. n* - It would be monstrous to .maintain that the Mother Country has no right to correct by wholesome laws, evils by which she is exposed to such costly demands for protection and reliefs It iwould be to say, that the ])lanter has a right to raise and maintain at pleasure on his own land a nuisance pestiferous to the vital resources of the empire j ^nd that Parliament has no right tos enter and abate it. Nay more, that the Mother Country is bound to be his insurer against his private share of the damage that may ensue fronv his own wrong. Unless all this is to be conced- ed, or in other words, unless the political rela- tion is to be reversed, the Mother Country to become dependent on the Colonies, and the peo- ple of England to hold their power and wealth at the will of West India Assemblies, you have a right to regulate the weight of those costly, chains, the stuff to repair which must be your gold, and the anvils the keels of your navy. I Perhaps there are some, who admitting the Parliamentary right to be incontestable, may questioai whether the exercise of it will be expe- dient ; and may be disposed to say " the Insular Assemblies best know the nature of the disease, and how to apply th«^ medy." Their superiority of judgement on the subject I will admit when it shall be proved to me that fcna prejudice t HI ] prejudice and self-interest are, less unfriendly id fair inference, than local diotance from the facts in question. But the wisdom of our laws has not unfrequently proceeded upon a different princi- ple ; as for example, when theii- favourite mode of investigating truth by a jury of the vicinage is broken through, on account of popular prejudices or partiality, in the hundred or county. I will not pay our West India ie\hw subjects the com- pliment of saying that they are fitter for impar- tial deliberations, while under the bias of real or imagined self-interest, than a jury of English- men. And wej^ it reasonable to give them such a preference in any case, the slightest knowletlg-c of their laws would forbid the allowance of it in the present. Take into your hands Sir, the v6lun.3S of Acts of Assembly of the different West India Islands; and where you find " negroes" or " slaves" in the index, refer to the Acts that relate to thi m. Till within the last few years, you will not find in a century or more, a single provision in these laws tending to protect a class of men by far the most nanicrous in those societies, from the inju- ries to which their situation mi'st always have exposed them : not one clause to limit tlie mas* ter's authority; not one to punish its abuse. With the exception of a provision or two in some of the Islarnls, against murder or maiming, I recollect no instance of any law to prote<^t; > ^.'•'4 the '{'4'] m ! mi.' j,|«;a i 1U 411 m I m -d ' 'a '■ij [ 142 I the »lave against the severity of the worst of owners; much less to guard him against .those more general and impoitaint sufferings, to whicl^ (lis absolute dependence, especially u|iQii an ava? ricious qr indigen|; mas^ter, obviously subjected bini, in the artjcle^ pf laboijr and food. .^^ Yet the slaves hs|ve been by no means forgotr ten by these locaj legislatuires. You will find them on the contrary to }\!i.ve been a very fre- quent subject of attention: but where their name occurs in the outset of a section, you wil} be sure to find stripes or death at the end pf it. That these poor bondsmen stood not in nee^ pf laws to protect, as well as to pupish thei||, will hardly be supposed, even by tl^e le^t considerate. The recent laws of many of the Islands would alone serviC tp prove incontestably the r^vei^e. for since the sulfject of JVest India slavery hus p^en brought so piuch under the notice of the English publiCy and of Parliament^ Acts of As? ^eit^bly have been passed, professing to control in $ome very essential ppints, especially in regard to the measi^reof food and of labqur, the master's before unlimited discretion. But vhile Sjuch laws manifest the gros ness of former neglect, I am sorry to say that they prpve no genuine change pf character jn the colonia) legislatures. ]Por no man possessed pf the small- est knowledge pf the subject, can consider them, yjthout perceiving npt pnly their utter inade- .quacy t us ] cjuacy to the ends proposed, but the impossibilif that their provisions, such as Uiey in general are, can be enforced. What their effects in Jamaica have been indeed, I know not from any direct in- formation : but am authorised to affirm, that at the Leewajxl Islands at least, these new Acts are a mere dead letter ; and that not an instance has occurned, in those Islands hitherto, of any attempt to enforce them. I should he much surprised to see the record of- a single convic? tion upon them produced from atiy part of the West Indjes; and if that cannot be done, several years after the enactment of such nov.cl laws, and upon so extensive a subjex^t, the conclusion if .;v f *'^ .}fi U sufficiently obvious. Should Parliament decline the exercise of a .concurrent legislatiop from confidence in these Assemblies, it would form a strong contrast with its jealousy of them in other cases ; where tJie lause of distrust is less weighty. Whciji the co- lon ia! purse of the Crown, or the interests of jiiivigution, are concerned, there has not been left to them even a concurrent power, of making jaws for their .own internal government. vnki Various, and formidable, are the powers to be exercised in the colonies by naval and revenue officers under many acts of parliament : and they arc not rarely of a kind that sccnis pecu- liarly to require the regulation or control of ,.-,i , , sonuv w) Ill 'Ml ■Ml ^^i. ; iff [ 144 ] m ' ■ ti (( / some authority nearer than Europe * yet by / Stat. 7. & 8. Will. III. Cap. 22. Sec. 9. "alllaws, by-laws, usages, or customs in the colonies, against the provisions of that or any other act 5* of parliament extending to them** are ex- pressly declared to be void. Nay more, the ex- ecution of these laws is not entrusted to the ordi- nary courts of the colony, formed upon the model of those at Westminster, and proceeding by a course known to the constitution of England ; but the jurisdiction is given to courts ofadmi^ ralty ; in which a single judge, appointed by the Cro^vn, and holding his ofHce at the royal will, decides both on the law and the fact without the intervention of a jury f. What Sir, is the reason, or the apology, for such an exclusive legislature in these cases; exercised as it has been without complaint, in a variety of cases, even ^ince the repeal of the Declaratory Act, and aided by such an inroad upon general British privileges ? Distrust of the Assemblies ; aJid of the ordinar)"^ courts and juries of these Islands ; on account of their particular hiierests^ and on account of their />rc/M(/ic'c« against those wliolc- some restraints on their trade, which the parent • See IS. and 14. Car. II. Cap. ll,«nd 7. and 8. Will. HI. Cap. 22. Sec. 6. ■ , .^ + See Stat. 22. and 23. Car.II. Cap. 26, Sec. 1 2, 4 Geo. III. Cap. 15, Sec. 41. -fK- ■>> state [ 145 ] state for the common benefit thinks necessary to maintain. Such power is exercised without scruple from regard to the public revenue, or even to the private merchants of this country; as in the Stat. 5. Geo. II. cap. 7. which for the easier re- covery of debts in the colonies due to indivi- duals here, makes an ex parte affidavit sent from England, equivalent in their courts to a viva voce examination of witnesses between the parties *. But - -•:>4 && V'W'i ^i^'?»V \it>> * This Statute also provided that lands and other real estate and negroes in the colonies should be liable to the sim« pie contract debts of the owner, and m^ght be taken in execu* tion and sold in the same manner as personal estates. Upon the injustice and cruelty of these provisions in respect of the slaves, Mr. B. Edwards took occasion in his History of Ja. maica, to remark very strongly, and to arraign the aboli. tionists of inconsistency and want of feeling in not moving for their repeal in parliament. The negroes, he observed, were liable to be dragged from the estate on which they and their fa. roilies were established, and from all those little sources of com. fort dependent on the soil, which good conduct and industry might have obtained for them ; to be separated from their wives and children ; to be sold to a stranger ; perhaps carried into a foreign land to end a miserable existence: and to be thus persecuted because the master was unfortunate ! fsee the very pathetic passage in his History of the West Indies^ vol, ti. cap, 4. page \54i.) He adds " that the hard case id *' one that occurs in practice every day : that the statute ** was disgraceful to the national character and to huma« (* nity and that it ought to be repealed ; and suggests, that the [* negroes ought to be attached to the land and sold with it.'* > ii Upon 'i\\ m »lSi| 'iM-vl <; i!>vMa \% h '"ti&r 1 '^p 1 ^. ' ^Bft'M \ ■'jSsf i ^ ^ XM [ U6 ] But when the reformation of a rank and invcte* rate system of evils, built up and cherished by the ■;>T lil '■i t- t . I > Upon these principles, Mr. Edwards, in the year 1797, brought into parliament, a bill which passed into a law (see 37, Geo. III. cap. 1 19.) with no small eclat to West India humanity ; and discredit to the comparative negligence of aboli., tionists. And how did this benevolent measure remedy the evil ? fTl/j by feftahng the Statute 5. Geo, II. Cap, 7. at /« the NScaoBS) hut leaving it in force As to the land. i. e, 7« prevent the negroet from being torn from the estate they belong to, the estate alone it to change masters ; and they can no longer be sold along nvith it, as was notoriously the former course of proceeding when plantation negroes were sold under executions at law ! I ! They must therefore not only quit their houses* provision grounds, and other local comforts, with such of their wives and children as belong to neighbouring estates ; but must follow the fortunes of an insolvent master, who has no longer an estate on which to place them ; and who must consequently either hire them out to a stranger, a plan peculiarly hostile to their welfare ; or transport them to settle new lands in some foreign territory, and divide them from all the objects of their early attachments for ever ! ! Such is the humanity and wisdom of this boasted Act ! the tingle boon of parliament to a ha{^es8 race to whose industry the nation owes so much, and who have such strong claims on legislative protection ! ! ! But let the English reader be re- lieved ! No itarm I can assure him has been actually done by this Statute i which is so strangely at variance with its own principle. The truth ia^ that long prior to the Act 6, Geo. II. tb? local laws of every West India colony we then possessed, had made slates liable to executions at law ; and that not generally, or with the land, but e^^pressly in /r/. crtty to the plantation and other real estate of the owner to 4 yihiom, h '-^'J. :vt-.^ ' I ■ I 147 ] the Colonial Assemblies themselves ; a reforma- tion which so many motives of justice, huma- nity, whcm they belonged : and in every Island that we have ac- quired since that Statute was made. Acts of Assembly have been passed, adopting in this respect the laws of the older colonies. By their express provisions, and by the very words of their writ of execution, land cannot be seized or sold, bat in default of slaves of value enough to satisfy the debt: so that the bar. barous consequences pointed out by Mr. B. Edwards would uniformly arise, were it not that the natural progress of in* solvency among planters, provides a security against them. Fortunately, long before an estate is taken in execution, the land and slaves are generally deeply mortgaged together, and the equity of redemption of both is sold in such cases, in one lot, to preserve the rights of the mortg^agee ; who is also commonly in possession before a sale under an execution takes place ; and as commonly is himself the purchaser of the equity of redemption. The truth therefore is, that though West India estates are very frequently sold by executions at law, the cruel effects pointed out by Mr. Edwards are by no means so frequent as )ie represented when he was thus loading the British Parlia. inent with the sins, of the Insular legislatures. I ought in justice to that writer, who I am sorry to find is now removed from the lists of human controversy, to observe, that Jie has himself, in page 1 5S of the book last cited, ad- mitted the grievance in question not to' have been ^nginally treateihy parliament; but I wish he had bee:? more explicit, »nd shewn that existing Acts of Assembly were in truth the only operative laws on the subject. I lament that he is not mow living, to contradict or admit the assertion ** that not^ withstanding his strong reprobation of this part of the .Insular >*^i;| • law. ■■■,{■ • 'tE ^P '■■ Ml ■'in m hM a i;. .* Against prejudices like these Sir, I know it would be vain to contend. I would as soon un- dertake to convince the dealers in the Slave Trade and their advocates, th^vt thp particular ' .'i'*]; interests [ 159 ] interests of Liverpool should yield "svlien op- posed to those of the empire at laige. But I conjure the planters to consider, that it is pos- sible a crisis may have arrived, when the preser- vation of their estates, or at least of the British character of their estates, may deptiid upon such a change of system as unluckily falls in with the odious views of abolitionists; and coolly to enquire, whether the present be not such a crisis. ...... , , .., ^ a- ^ -^ They well know how to appreciate the diffi-r culties of defensive West India war, in circum- stances like those in which we are likelvsoon to be placed. Making even 'every allowance which their most flattering hopes can suggest, for a possible aggravation of the approaching dan- gers in the view's I have laid before you, they must at least feel that the defence of our West India dominions will in future be a most ar- duous duty ; and they must know that the ef- forts of the iiation, though great, cannot be unlimited, Let them therefore fairly weigh the effects of such a diversion of force as must arise from the importance and great vul- nerability of Trinidada, if now to be settled by the Slave Trade. They need not to be told tliat a naval or mili- tary force at Jamaica would scarcely be any greater security to that distant w indward Island, tjian the troops quartered at Colchester, or tlie , , . ships >iW Jl )S m .fi I I 160 ] chips in ordinary at Portsmouth. Nor, though it imay not be so obvious to European ideas, would the force stationed in the Leeward Islands be less incapable of bringing timely succour to pre- vent invasion or conquest. The course of the trade wind among those Islands, much more than .their local proximity or distance, fixes the effects of their relative positions for the purposes of war. From the interposition of that great naval arsenal of France, Martinique, and of the now very powerful Colony of Guadaloupe, between our Leeward Island station and Trinidada, the necessity of maintaining distinct defensive estabhshments at both fhe latter might be more clearly demonstrated. But it would be a waste of time to insist further upon propositions so clear, as that a force independent of all our other defensive establishments in the same quar- ter of the world, must be maintained in the gulph of Paria, proportionate to the importance of this new Island, and the danger of its si- tuation; and that this peculiar and necessary service must greatly impair the means by which the old Colonies might in the approaching crisis hope to be defended. ] Look back. Sir, on what has been formerly ob- served respecting the waste of life and of treasure in West India wars. Then while you contemplate the addition of this new branch of service, con- sider also its probable magnitude, from the great " extent ire ite ^n- pat nt [ 161 1 extent of the Island, the facility • of invasion, and the greatness of the hostile force by which it will be surrounded. Reflect next, on the great sickliness, to which in common with all lands in that climate while under the process of clearing, this Island is undeniably subject, and to which its brave defenders would consequently in ii high degree be exposed ; and then say, wht wiier the suggestions of avarice are not con- trary to the dictates of sound policy, on this momentous occasion ! Should it after all be thought too much to desist finally from the extension of our cart-whip empire, and the enlargement of our once repu- diated Slave Trade, in the settlement of this new Colony, at least let the rash measure be post- poned. Let us wait till the stonn shall have subsided before we send to sea a new and richly freighted bottom. ^''' J ' '' ^ ^ *. ~ If the produce of the sale of the Crown lands be a temptation which the national wisdom and justice cannot wholly resist, let avarice at least not ruin her own object by a foolish impe- tuosity. In any event of the French West India enterprise that can at all weaken the force of these remarks, the vacant lands will cestainly sell to much greater profit than at the present period, while negro freedom is yet un- subdued, and immense negro armies uncon- qucrcd and undisbanded. The alarming pros- ' M ~ pects !i| I „!■ l\ '■"} ill m 111 j« ' r ]l '!■ [ 162 ] pects I have set before you, will probably soon be brought nearer to the eye if real, or dissi- pated if delusive. Does the Chief Consul really mean, as he promises, to maintain negro freedom at Guadaloupe and St. Domingo? His first mea- sures there will probably prove that intention ; and then who will assert it to be prudent in Oreat Britain to found new Colonies of slaves ? If on the contrary, his views have been rightly delineated in the former part of this ad- dress, the resistance he may immediately expe- rience will possibly demonstrate in a short time the extreme difficulty of the enterprise; and prove to every thinking mind, that either his iinal defeat, or a compromise with negro liberty highly dangerous to our Colonies, or the du- tenance of enormous military establishments, to lis, in a national view not less dangerous, must be the ultimate result : in either of these cases, my practical conclusion must be abun- dantly clear. The only possible event which can make the planting of the old system in this new soil, less than political phrenzy, is that of an easy, total, lasting, counter-revolution in those Colonies, by which the old bondage shall be there essentially and permanently restored. Of this result, the proof cannot, I admit, be so speedy ; for the ut- most apparent success on the arrival of the ai'- niament, will not, as before remarked, be a sure advaoce by ally the ut- ai'- mrc LQce [ 163 ] advance towards the ultimate object. In this case therefore, it is true that you will have to wait till the drivers shall have resumed their former occupation, till labour shall, for a short period at least, have again been j)eaceably pursued under the coercing whip j and above all, till the Repub<- lie shall disband her negro armies, and reduce her European force in the Colonies, within limits approaching to the par of her former estab- lishments, and consistent with the safety of her neighbours. . » Even this longest term of suspense however might be patiently endured, if avarice would but fairly calculate the improvements of the fu- ture proceeds of the sales of unsettled lands, when an experiment so decisive^ shall have proved the dreaded progress of negro emancipation to be for ever defeated. Mean time every substan- tial advance towards this consummation of the planter's wishes, will render the measure which I deprecate less indefensible in point of policy, and the sale of the Crown lands less wasteful. Let it not be for a moment understood, that to plead for mere delay, is the whole extent o£ my purpose; or that I despair of a more en- larged and generous policy being successfully recommended to you, Sir, and to your col- leagues in administration. I hope the argu- ments which have been offered, and the stronger ones which might upon moral prjnciplej be ad- >.'c'')ni duced, I i [ 164 ] duccd, will suffice to obtain for Africa in this case more than a respite. " ' •' ^ But it has gone abroad, I know not on what authority, that an immediate sale of the Crown lands in Trinidada was a measure actually in the contemplation of his Majesty's Ministers ; and it is obvious, that such sales if now made, would be pledges from government to the purchasers, for the admission of slavery and of the Slave Trade. It is add^d, that when against this bold and bad measure the security of an official declaration was desired by a highly respectable Member of the House of Commons, you declined publicly to engage for even the suspension of such sales till the wisdom of Parliament should deliberate on the important subject. ...•,» ^r Pardon me, Sir, if the effisct in my mind of such reports, has been an injurious distrust of your intentions in this most momentous affair. Nothing but the great prevalence of such ru- mours, and the recent triumphs of Slave Trade interests over the clearest dictates of sound na- tional policy, Ct-uld have made me apprehend the possibility of a new Slave Colony being ever founded by Great Britain in the West In- dies after the Parliamentary votes of 1792; much less with such blind precipitation as these ru- mours import; but after what mc have seen lately permitted on the continent of Dutch Guyana, a subject from which for the present I purposely of ely L 165 ] purposely abstain, nothing of this kind ought to be deemed incredible; and therefore only am I induced to implore delay, lest it should be too. much to hope that right principles will perma-* ncntly triumph over short-sighted avarice on this occasion. Hitherto Sir, I earnestly request it may be ob- served, that my arguments have been addressed, not to the conscience of a British Statesman, but to his prudence alone ; and, but that it would argue great moral insensibility in the writer, ?.s well as do violence to right feelings, it would perhaps be wise to rest my case here ; without attempting to strengthen it by what with some minds is a most dangerous support, an appeal to higher principles, than those of political expe- diency. There are men who hardly scruple to avow the opinion, that in public deliberations the pro- hibitions of the moral law ought often to be dis- regarded when opposed to national advantage ; and there are statesmen who have avowedly acted upon that dangerous principle in regard to the Slave Trade; holding that its abolition or con- tinuance, was a question to be decided rather by considerations of expediency, than by the dic- tates of humanity and justice. * - ^ Of course it is in vain to reason with such men in puWk Ufe, upon principles of mere moral obli^ gation, whether Christian or Pagan. They will neither ii.- [ 166- ] neither reprobate with St. Paul the doing evil that g^od may ensue; nor hold with a Heathen statesman " In eadcm re utilitas et turpitudo esse lion potest** " hoc ipsum utile putcre quod turpe sity calizmitosum est."* The book of entries is their Bible; and a custom-house officer at the bar, with an account of exports in his hand, Henids ac melius Ghryslppo et Crantore dicit. But unfortunately, with some who thus soar above vulgar prejudice, the understanding does not long profit by its enfranchisement from or» dinary restraints. Having attained, what the ■tt^orid perhaps is too ready to allow them, the praise of political wisdom, they too highly prize the peculiar source of this estimation ; and that their exemption from the weaknesses of the heart in public conduct may not be overlooked, you will be sure upon any question in which goodnaturcd feelings have an interest on one side, to find their voices on the other. Hence, these sages gradually acquire an obliquity of vision upon every public object in which moral considerations are involved; and their minds are as iar warped frotu the straight line of sound practical judgement to the left hand, as the most imprudent follower of abstract moral rectitude was ever bent to the right When a measure is shewn to them to be wicked, it is more than half ; • ^ ' • Cic. dc offic. Lib. iii. ' ' " proved [ 167 1 l}\ proved to be wise. Nay their artificial taste, like other unnatural propensities, often ac- quir'^s greater strength, and more powerful domi- nation over reason and prudence, than the natu- ral one it has supplanted could ever have at- tained If philanthropy has ita enthusiasts, political immorality has devotees, not so ardent indeed, but more than equally blind and irra- tional. There are fanatics in the school of Ma- chiavel. as well as in that of Rousseau. I might well illustrate these remarks by re- viewing some past measures relative to the Slave Trade : but besides the impropriety of such a digression, it-would lead me into a subject, the discussion of which has been for the present expressly declined. , . Crying mercy then of th^se profound poli- ticians, and requesting them not to ruin the effect of the preceding arguments upon their own minds by reading the next following pages, I proceed to offer a brief remark or two on the 7mral character of the measure which I would persuade you to avoid. Be not apprehensive, Sir, that I mean to lead you into any investigation of those trite and disgusting top; , the wickedness and the base- ness of the slave trade. I will not even ask you to admit, what no man who has read the evidence on the subject can conscientiously deny, that the African aiarkct is m m tm '.:i,^\ i fl ! I ft u r 168 1 is supplied by criminal means alone*^. But I must beg leave to recall to your recollection the votes on this subject of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, in the year 1792. In a Committee of the whole House, on Mon- day the 2d of April, in that year, upon an amended question, *' That it is the opinion of this Committee that the trade carried on by British subjects for the purpose of obtaining slaves on the Coast of Africa ought to be gra- " dually aholishedy'' the Committee having di- vided, the numbers were, ,s,^,.v{ ■ >• ' /, For the Question 230 Against it 85 Majority --------145 In the course of the same month several sub- sequent debates took place, and as many ques- tions were decided in the negative by small ma- jorities, upon propositions for abolishing the trade at different periods />rior to 1796\ «c c< II !''^ * 1. Stihi of debtor iy and their human panunSy or their fnmilicty in consequence chiefly of credit given by the slave traders in brandy, tobacco, &c> with a view to such means of payment. 2. Coni'ictionsfor crimes; mo»tIy imputed for the saicc of selling the accused and his f.imily, such as nuitthcrafty Sec. 3. kidnap- ping ; and 4. nuan \ which arc always proportionate in frequency atid '.'Xtent to the demand for captives — these, are the only sources of 'vendible or exportable slavery in Africa. No historical fact is better citablisbcd, or less open to controversy than this. At [ 16P 1 At length on the 28th of April, • 1792, upon un amended Question, " That it shall not be lawful to import any African negroes into any British Colonies or Plantations in ships oum- ed or navigated by British Subjects^ at any *' time after the first day of January 179^," it Wf.s carried in the affirmative. Ayes ---- ---- 151 Noes 132 « u ^ n ' An argument much relied on by one of your present colleagues, a zealous defender of this commerce^ was thus done away ; and in its stead a new tie of an honorary nature be and the Com- mons to consistency. Nor is it material to say that the Republic or other European nations have revived or propose to revive this trade, while they have so much reason to conclude that Great Britain will not concur in renouncing it ; unless it can be shewn that we have treated with them for a general compact to make the sacrifice universal. If any diplomatic propo- sition of that nature yvus made to France, for the credit of this country, let the fact be made public ; but if not, the relapse of the French or other nations into this iniquity, will be no excuse for our own apostacy ; of which it will be rather an efltcct, than a motive, and an aggravation, rather tlian an excuse. Suppos- ina* however that other nations had not been deceived by, or acted upon our resolutions, * The most satisfactory cviJcncc of this fart has been found in the papers of neutral vessels from the French Colonics taker as prizes and prosecuted in ou, Admiralty Courts. See th4 tases of the Acti've and Autline before the Lords Commis. titiitn of Ap^peals in Prix. Causes in I80i2. Further evidence tn the part o) the Caf^tors, page 4J. The same fuct has also clearly appeared in other Appeals. they t 173 ] they arc still binding in honor. as well as conscience upon the British Commons, and are still the uncancelled records of our self- conviction if wantonly in principle trans- gressed. Under such circumstances what name ought to be given to the project of those who would found a new Slave Colony at Trinidada ? In- stead of binding up the bleeding veins of Africa in 1796, they would in the second year of the 19th century, enlarge her wounds by new and more fatal incisions. Instead of merely sus- taining those houses built by blood and mi- sery which we then owned, they would mark out the foundations of a new and enormous edifice, to be raised, and kept in repair for ages to come, by the same horrible materials. They would open a new West Indies, and pre- pare new fleets of slave-ships to drain the yet remaining blood of Africa, and stimulate her wretched children to new crimes, that our new shambles may be filled. . .. ^ The utmost period to which even Mr. Dundas would have protracted the miseries of that hapless continent, has arrived ; nay, the sun has twice run his annual round, since Mr. Pitt, with the full concurrence of that too powerful friend, was to see the benign light of civilization begin to shed on the dark . ft 3; III ^m-'t M ii J if t 174 ] dark horizon of Africa at least an evening ray—— ji^^^a^:^}) i^."!\\:\. -i, ■./> ■' -i * " Illic sera rubens accendit lumina vesper !'• Alas ! how unreal have proved the prospects sa eloquently painted ! In that gloomy region not a star has yet risen, but it is profound and hope- less darkness still. - -intcrnpesta silet nox '',.:V.- i'^ Semper, et obtent& densantur nocte tenebrae. To recede ffom a generous purpose of refor- mation, is however far less reproachful to a great nation, than to enter upon new crimes of which she has felt and admitted the turpi- tude; and when the bounds of acknowledged and repented transgression are willingly en- larged beyond those limits which bad habit has made it difficult to contract, it argues more tlian a want of virtuous energy ; it indicates a character rotten to the core, and in which the influence of moral sensibility is wholly sub- verted. And shall a great nation like this. Sir, ex- pose itself to such foul reproach ! Shall Great Britain, after avowing the smart of an awaken- ed conscience, and promising like a poor Mag- ♦ Sec Mr. Pitt's incomparable speech in the debate of April Hi, 1 7i'2. dalen t 175 ] dalen to reform when relieved from the ab- horrid necessity of sinning, relapse into deeper prostitution the moment a new set- tlement is offered ! ! Forbid it that sentiment to which may Englishmen nev> . become in- sensible ! forbid it the sense of nutionial dignity and virtue ! . ,. For apostacy so infamous as such conduct would amount to, well might Englishmen blush; for let it be remembered that it was not merely by the votes of the Commons that the Slave Trade was condemned : a vast majority of the nation at large anticipated by their declared opinions and their wishes, that solemn and righteous judgment: and by whom has the self- condemning sentence been reversed ? The Lords indeed have not given their concurrence; but even they have pronounced no different verdict on the evidence, upon which the solemn cause is still depending before them. If that House of Parliament has not echoed, at least it has not expressly negatived, the conclusions of the Commons, and the petitions of the people. Is there then to be found in history a pre- cedent for national inconsistency so very base as the opening a new Slave Colony by the African trade would at this juncture amount to? Nations indeed have sometimes acted in- congruously enough with their professions and avowed principles ; but it has generally, or al- i ■ r^. w ay [ 176 ] ways, been in the puisuit of objects, which whether real or ostensible, were in their kind less sordid than the bribe now held out in Trini- dada by the Slave trade; from motives something less grovelling than mere avarice ; and rarely, if ever, at the expence of principles so very sacred as those we are now called on to sacrifice or to maintain. The crime would I conceive be quite unparallelled in enormity ; and there is hardly a civilized nation on earth that might not af- terwards look down upon this favoured land, boastful of its public virtue, and apply to us with some little variation the reproof of one of our own poets for a vice of a different character : ** O Britain infamous for avarice, , . ^ *' An island in thy morals more depraved, " Than the whole world of rationals beside ; "In ambient waves plunge thy polluted head, ■:■< ** Wash the dire stain, nor Ihock the Continent." Perhaps even with those Latitudinarians, who disclaim in pubHc life the obligations of mo- rality, national character at least, may be held of some importance; and they may feel that the credit of the country, demands some lit- tle attention to consistency on this occasion. Let me suggest to them therefore, that if the Slave Trade is to be thus extended, the votes of 1792 ought to be reversed; and erased like the resolutions on the Middlesex election from [ irr ] ■tv^A from the journals of th'e House., I woiilJaiso recommend that the great body of evidence re" specting the nature and sources of the Afyi-* can trade which was laid at that aera before Par* liament, and so strongly impressed the con* science of the Commons, may be committed to the flames ; i|nless upon a second inspection i^ should be found like some cabalistic in^crip-r tions mentioned in the Arabian Tajes, to hav^ since changed its form and signification, 3ut for such of the great speakers in favour pf abo*? lition, whfether immediate or gradual, as m^y now countenance such an extension of the iSl^ye Trade or allow it to pass without their sincere opposition, a more difficult labour will remain. They must collect and destroy everj/ impression of those powerful speeches, the elpque^nce of which has given them a widf diffusion in the libraries of the present day, and would embalm them for posterity J lest they should hereafter hold a lamp to the hearts of their authors, \ hen the anxious politics of the present day shall be too remote in tim^ knd interest to surround with false rays the great public actors engaged in them, while the eternal principles of morals shall remain, to measure by an unchanging scale, the true magnitude or littleness of character. But I am wronging those great men of both parties who have supported tV.c cause of aboll- 'it,, *• m ^ I' I i ^'^;l ^ uo^, if: B ,."^.. > IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 11.25 ■U I2i2 12.2 !g lia 12.0 ■!■■ i" Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 4^ ^: ^. V <^^1. a3V»STMA:N*SfNn7 WIMTM.N.'f. '.4SM (7U)i7a-4.so:! is I <\ . [ 1>^ ] tion, !^ supposing for a mcwrient that they could fall into such reproachfiil apostaey. That they 'VouW if necessary vindicate the honour of il- IiistTious talents by a far different conduct, and irould be supported not only by the voice of J^rliaraent, but of the nation kt large, is I trust unquestionable. I would hope however thait there will be fbund as well within the Ca- binet, as without, a perfect unanimity of opinion against a wanton and enormous enlargement of the Trade for the purpose in question^ whatever d^f!«renccs may stili subsist as to its imitiediate abdiition. |f the reasons which have been offered agains elusive ; if moial principles solemn ly and repeat- edly recognized by, one branch of the Legis- Ituture^ and not disclaimed by the otha*, ought not to be needlessly and grossly violated ; or if all the serious prudential objections to .that iniquitous project which have been bere urged^ are not too weak to foi.'I»d at least its immedi- ate adoptio;^ ; my argument imposes on me XU) necessity to go further, and to point out positive advantages that may be derived from this .a H; Of .that rged^ acidi- me t out from this I 179 ] thii< new Colony by an opposite mode of treat- ment. There ai-e however great and extensive be* nefits, of an innocent and imob^(tUonatie kmd,: which the nation iliay reap from this cession; and I regret that the necessity of drawing to jH conclusion prevents my now speaking of tliem flo fully and' distinctly as they deserve. Of the commercial capacities of the Island^ something wais lately said in Parliament, and tbeir value was not exaggerated. That the deep and capacious Bay of Paria» effectually guarded as it is by its well enclosedj situation) if not also by its geographical places from the peril of hurricanes,^ will soon he the favourite resort of West India cominerce, hardly admits of a dbubt ; and alueady experi*' ence has begun in some degree to prove, that it will become a most useful and important tntre* pAtf between the manufacturers of Great Bri- tain, and the traders of Spanish America, To Trinidada^ the Spaniards already resort with their dollars and rich native commodities, it| order ta purchase the cottons of Manches* ter, and dther manufactures of this country, so much in demand in their own. For these, they have been long accustomed to frequent with their small veisels the porta of the British^ * Kurricanes htvt never yet been known so hr to the •ojithward* Islands, * iff If if W ill [ 180 ] Islands, at a great distance from their own coasts, tiiough admitted only by connivance, contrary to our Acts of Parliament, as well as to the laws of Spain. But they have visited not British ports only : those of all other European nations who possessed any Settlement, in the Charribbean seas, have partaken of the* benefit; aUd foreign manufactures have conse* quently in some degree supplanted our o^vn. , In these commercial voyages, much was natu^ rally added by the length of the passage to the degree of a danger most formidable in its kind ; perpetual imprisonment, and hard labour, as well as confiscation of property, being the penalties, incurred under their own laws, by these adventu- rers when seized in the course of that illicit traf- fic : and this.risque during the passage naturally diminished an intercourse, which it could not wholly suppress. Our own merchants tempted by the eiioimous profits they obtained, were some- times bold enough to embark in this trade and. to supply the craving markets of the Spanish settlements in British vessels, at the peril of the same fearful consequences attendant on deteC'^ < tion and capture. The laxity of fiscal police in. the interior of these settlements, is so great, or the connivance of revenue officers there, from a sense of puhlic necessity, to> universal, that the danger incurred by the Spanish smugglers seems to be confined to the transport of the com- modities [ 181 ] ies hiodities by sea ; and therefore when that danger shall be materially abridged by the proximity of the foreign port vith which they trade, the com- merce will probably soon and greatly increase. It is still more probable that almost all the scat- tered- streams of this lucrative trade which have heretofore flowed ^from different points of the Spanish continent in the vicinity of Tri- nidada, to tlie English, French, Dutch, and Danish Charribbee Islands, will be collected to- gether by a channel so inviting as that which will now present itself in the Gulph of Paria, at only three miles distance from the main. I would not be understood as meaning to re- commend a species of commerce, interdicted by the laws of the two countries between the sub- jects of which it obtains. Whether wants the most urgent, and a necessity which is no less than that of being clothed when naked, may excuse the Spanish colonists in breaking through the jealous and tyrannical restrictions of a royal ordinance, and whether also the British merchant is absolved from the duty of obeying kti Act of Parliament when the oflicers of the CUstoms are officially instructed to dispense* with- it, * are questions which I am not bound to discuss. I '' ^ " ■ * It is by instructions from ihe Boaird of Customs, that the British Ports in the West Indies' are open to this tradej contrary to the Acts of Navigati^n.^ yi^. , speak ^"'Sfli m ill? [ 182 ] speak of what conrmerce may be expected at Trinidaila, not of what ought to be allowed. . I^et me however digress so far, as to suggest t^t it would be honourable to your arlministra^ tion to remove, if possible, these stumbling blocks fiut of the way of commercial morals ; and that the cession of Trinidada may perhaps fur* nish a fair oppprtunity of effecting it. Spain, conscious of her inability to prevent by any laws an intercourse to which there are on both ii^$ so great temptations, and to which our possession of the Gulph of Paria will how give new facilities ; may perhaps be disposed to pur- cha^ by a regulated permission of the trade/ some conventional security against the evils of cmtraband dealings, and against other incon- veniencies which she may apprehend in a political view, from our near approach to her Continental possessions. As to the British laws which pro- hibit this commerce, their repeal has as I appre- hend be^n prevented only by the fear of giving oflence to the Court of Madrid. It would cer- tainly be indecent openly to legalize a trade with the subjects of any power contrary to its own prohibitions. Though the illicit and clandestine nature of this commerce would certainly contribute to the peculiar attractions of Trinidada, this port would have claims enough to secure to it also a decided preference, in the event of a more ge- neral [ 183 ] neral intercourse with the continent being le- galized by the government of Spain. But our new colony has other commercial ad- vantages of a novel and peculitlr kind. If by vicinity to Laguayra, and the other ports of the province of Caraccas, it invites the commerce of the Spanish Colonies on the Main, it offers the same motive of preference to the colonists of Demerara, Berbice, Issequibo, and Surinam, which are all at a short distance to the windward, on the same rich continent. Of these settlements, restored by the latetreaty to the Dutch Republic, the two former, if the national character of the chief inhabitants and proprietors were to constitute that of the soil, might be called British Colonies. By adventurers from the English Islands many of their finest plantations were owned before the war; and such extoisive tracts of their uncleared lands have been purchased and settled by our fellow^* subjects since thie capture of those colonies, that the Dutch planters are probably inferior both in number and fortune to the British. What restrictions the policy of the European masters may impose on their reviving trade, it is not easy to foresee : but the want of capital and credit will in all probability lead to an indul- gent system; and of whatever commercial inter- course they may allow to foreigners, their enter- prising British neighboui's will be tlie first to reap It i t i84 ] relaj> the behefit. Habit will conspiie with mof6 rational grounds of preference^ to recommend the manufactures of this countiy; and unless Very strange reverses take place, the British itiarket, when the , certainty and convenience of its returns are taken into account, will pro^^ bably be long the most eligible destination for the consignment of West India products* This double inducement, under a government professing to be popular, will either bend the law to the general convenience, or make tlie geheral convenience too strong for the law; and in either event, Trinidada may be expected to become a warehouse for the supply of these flourishing settlements with the merchandize of Europe; and for the reception o^ their produce in return. » Hither also, the exports from the United States of America ultimately destined for the supply of the colonies on the Main, will natu-^ rally find their way; especially during the hur- ricane season, or when from the crops being over, or from a temporary glut of such commo> dities, immediate recurns are not to be expected from the place of final destination. Here, as ina secure and convenient magazine, those essential.' supplies will be deposited, as of late years they were for the use of our own Islands at StEusta- tius ; and the merchant of Trinidada will either receive a middle profit, or a factor's commis- sion, t 185 1 sioit, froin the exporter of North America on the one hand; and the planterofGuyanaon the other* From these considerations, . which might be much further extended, this settlement will probably become an emporium of Western commerce, superior to any that has yet been seen between the tropics. , " So' fer. Sir, are these great commercial views from recommending, that they evi- dently and strongly tend to interdict, the further introduction of slavery, and the Slave Trade, into Trinidada. The footing which the baneful West India system has already gained there is insignifi* cantly small, when compared to the extent of the Island; and if its further progress shalLbe prevented, you may gradually fix in that new soil a firm and tranquil dominion, so as to per-^ petuate these great commercial advantages; instead of possessing tliem by that precarious, une^y, and cbstly tenure, by which the so- vereignty of a slave colony in the West Indies must always in future be held. Let' therefore the great and innocent value of this important . cession, be anew argument against applying it to the guilty uses that short sighted avarice would suggest. Are then, it may be asked, the fertile lands of this extensive Island to remain in the same unproductive state in which Spanish indolence has 1: m [ 186 ] has left them ? Better so, than that they should be watered by human blood, and the tears of humai) wretchedness. But happily, this is not the only alternative. . ^o Sir, a beneficent Providence, has put into your hands, an inestimable treasury, of more than commercial, or than agricultural wealth; com- prising these indeed, to a large extent, but con- taining a pearl of far higher price, to arrest the improvident alienation of which, is no unim- portant object of this Address. You have in this great acquisition, the means of most favourably trying an experiment of unspeakable importance to mankind ; an expe- riment never tried before ; and of which the sue- cessmight in future produce such extensive good, as to indemnify humanity for all the evils pf the late dreadful war : Africa might hereafter be ddi- vcred by it from the devastation of the Slave Trade; and a new system founded in the West Indies, gradually, but surely corrective, of all the evils of the old. To hold at least a highly probable chance, of tmch great effects, and of attaining with them, a vet unknown degree of colonial strength and prosperity, you have scarcely a sacrifice to make; nor to call upon the country for a single active effort. Almost all that will be necessary, is, to abstain, from what I hope has upon other views, been proved to be a most impolitic, and ill-timed ill'timed alienation of the public domains in Trinidada ; and to prohibit the importation of slaves, or at least of negroes to .remain in bond- age, for the further settlement of that Island. It; to purchase a chance of such gigantic good, a large price were to be paid by the pub- lic, I will not wrong the feelings of Englishmen so much, as to doubt that they would chearfuUy ratify the contract But, if there . be justice in the preceding arguments, the plan I propose to you, is one pregnant with the only means of future oeconomy^ and abiding wealth, in the West Indies ; and therefore it would be erro- neous to consider as any pecuniary sacrifice, the means I have next to suggest: more espe- cially, as they will only keep pace with the suc- cess of the experiment In addition then, to a provident reservation of the crown lands, and the prohibition of im- porting slaves for their future culture. Let a portion of that rich and unopened soil, be sold at a low pricCy or granted freely y to all who will un- der take, as the condition of the tenure, and on peril of reverter to the crown, to settle and cul- tivate it by the labor 0/ free negroes. - As further encouragement, it will be neces- sary that whoever shSl add by importation to the common stock of free cultivators, shall have secured to him a pre-emption of their labor for a reasonable time, upon terms to be regulated by law ; ->1 m '\\m I'll t 188 i law; or in other words, that they shall for A tei-m of years be placed in the known relation of indented servants, to the planter for the culture of whose estate, and at whose expence, they shall be brought to the Island and enfranchised. > ' • ^Ehat the nature ^f this new condition may be Ittrttquivocaily distinguished from the state, ina*- d^uately defined by the term "slavery," and may not degenerate into that pernicious bond- age, its limits niust be clearly and anxiously fixed by positive law, and guarded by the most vigorous sanctions. The fundamental properties of negro slavery, to which in my first Letter I called your attention, must bet wholly reversed. The qualified and temporary property of the mas- ter in the labor of his imported servants, must not be transferable at his discretion : still less must it be liable to be severed, unless under very spe- cial circumstances, from the tenure of the land; The wages to be given, whether in money or food, must be determined by law ; and so must the ge- neral maximum of work to be exacted. Above all, the brutalizing method of enforcing labdr by the immediate applicatioh or terror of the driver's lash, must be totally prohibited. That shameful peculiarity of jegro bondage, that bane of moral character in the slave, is utterly inconsistent with the happy formation of a new system, as well as with the effectual re- formation of the old. .. , Some [ 189 ] Some power of correction for obstinate idle- ness or bad conduct, it may be necessary to in- trust to the master; but its exercise must be jealously superintended by the l^w, and its abuse severely punished ; forfeiture of the right of service ought to be one consequence of any scr rious ill treatment of a servant. To enforce such laws, magistrates of great respectability, independent of the community in which they live, and precluded iromholding land- ed property in the Island, ought to be appointed, and armed with extraordinary powers ; and tiieir personal security in the exercise of their offices ought to be anxiously provided for. They should be made amenable for official mis- conduct to British Tribunals only J and should be obliged to record the evidence on which they proceed, in order to secure and facilitate the due investigation of their judgments, upon appeals to a higher tribunal in this country ; which appeals pughit in all important cases to be allowed, and under such regulations as will prevent expence and delay to the parties as much as possible, and at the same time check a litigious spirit. , But the grand and essential spring, and guard of all, is Parliamentaryi Legislation. 1 would earnestly a4viseyou,Sir, in the form-» ing a Constitution for this new Colony, to avoid the fatal error of giving to it, in its in^ fancy, a legislative Assembly. At least until its population 1.1 r" w I population and wealth become such as to pro- mise a respectable representation, let the power of making laws for itr^ internal government, rest exclusively with Parliament. SbmethiBg has in a former part of this Letter been said of the inconveniences that have arisen from the institution of petty Legblative Assem^ bliesy which represent and sit in tl^^iicentre of the small communities over which they preside ; and of their inaptitude to correct such local evils even, 3S a^em to fall within their most peculiar pro** vince. The remarks there made, may be ex- tended beyond the consideration of the slave laws ; and, I know not, the mischiefs springing from those laws excepted, a source of greater political evils in our small West India Islands^ than their having been separately complimented with a pigmy model of the British. Constitution. That noble machine, bdieve me, does not work well upon so small a scale. It is however suffi- ciently evident, that in the first rude stage of colonization, the settlers must be peculiarly unfit to form such an Affierobly, as may be safely intrusted with the momentous business of forming or improving a municipal code ; especi- ally a code, to be built upon principles so opposite to the former habits anH notions of West Indians, OS those which 1 trust will be the basis of the laws of Trinidada. To these practical hints, brief and general as they [ 191 ] they are, I am aware that many ohjections will occur. Of those that seem the most import- ant I have well considered the force ; and regret that it is impossible, without delaying this publication too long, and extending its bulk beyond all reasonable bounds, to state them distinctly, with the satisfactory answers, by whiqh I think they might be repelled. The difficulty that in my estimate has the greatest weight, is one which the West India party would probably not choose to bring for- ward. It arises fiom a fact of which fram fa- miliar acquaintance \^ith some of our old Co- lonieSk I have a clear conviction, that such chetfpntss of labour is by no means to be ex' pected from the voluntary industry^ however grtati of negroes in a state offreedom^ as now excites the enterprizCj and splendidly rewards the success of the planter, in places where sla- very is established. I admit therefore that Tri- nidada would not on the plan proposed hold out to adventurers so good a field for the acquisition of a rapid fortune, as our slave colonies, while we are able to preserve them, may in general afford. And as a consequence of this concession, I must further explicitly declare my opinion to be, that if blind PA'arice is to be gratified by the most lucra- tive sale of the vacant lands that can be (effected, the pyrchaser must be indulged with the cheap acoustomed mode of cultivation. But if toe J more f I 192 3 :r tttore liberal policy here recommended^ should be adopted ill the disposal of those fertile iatidS) spe- culation I doubt hot win be sufficiently active t»^ make the setttlement soon very populous and^ flourishing ; notwithstanding the enlianced price of labour^ and all other objections that can bet slated. , -,_..; J ..i...!l) The planter's gains^ though not sb ^ gr&ik^ as where slav. labor on a successful estate is attainable^ would be more uniform, and infinitely more seicure ; while the abundance of landi with which he might be furnished for* raising provisions, the richness of the soil, the peculiar' practicability of employing the plough in the large savannas of level land with whii^h the Island abounds, and other means by which hu« man labour when no longer cheapened by the effects of slaverj'', would be carefully saved, would all tend to lessen the force of this chief • objection, and to invite settlement under the new system at Trinidada. ' This consideration would if the planter could ■ be sufficiently encouraged, become a great recommendi'tion of_ the plan propdlsed, ra-- ther than an objection t;o it. If the negro were better paid, or better maintained in re-* turn for his labor, to whom would the profit ultimately result, but to the manufacturers^ merchants, and ship-owners of Great Britain ; and through them to the revenu? and maritime ' ,, , resources \^ 1 resources of the Empire ? This, Sir, is a wide ^nd interesting topic from which I am soriy to abstain, I mu^( however avoid digression; an4 therefore will only so far e^-pis^in the hint as to observe, that thr^e thousand free negro labourers would probably purchase ipore European pon^- moditi^s ai^d mauufactures i^lport^d in Britis(i shipping, than are now consumed by t^ti thoHs^i\d slaves. Your West India ships now ou an average cany out to the Islands in actual freight no^ more than one third of their tonn^^; hut thp ships trading to Xrinidada, would probably be afi fully laden on their outwayd, as on tfeeir liomc:^ ward, voyage. Of other apparent objections to this interestr ing plan I ipust for the present wholly avoid thp discussion ; as well as of a most important and delicate question, " WhetJ^er slavery being Jirs( effectiiaffy proffiblt^ in Trini^dm^ ipipgrtation from Africa plight j^stiJiably be permitted^ to those who should chuse to enfranchise the negroes they might import^ with if view to the mofe speedy (ind effectual settlement of the Island ?" It is notiuerely from the necessity of hastening to ^ conclusion, but from the difficulty of this ques- tion in amoral view, that I decline the discussion of it undpr the present unsettled circumstance^ pf the case. When it shall be expressly and firmly decide4 not tq tolerate a new Colony of Slaves, it will be tim^ enough to consider, whether the African trade o ma|f i .til \]\\ 1 [ w ] may contcienciously be made to minister to a new and beneficent system, which is to operate its owti extinction; and provide like the viper out of its own substance the means of healing more speedily the wounds it has inflicted. Let 4fte not however be misunderstood. Of the duty of totally and immediately abolishing the Slave Trade I am far indeed from entertaining a doubt ; and have adverted to the question of allowing it to feed a free and happy population atTrinidada, only under the apprehension that Parliament may »tiU allow it to widen the circle 6f the deplorable bondage subsisting in our other Islands. . I(L that case only, I find it difficult to say that to in){>ort a hundred negroes upon the terms of imanumission, immediately from Africa, would be more culpable than to bring them circuitously through Barbadoes or G renada. To remove Creole slaves upon such terms from the old Islands, and supply their place with Africans, would clearly be an ill judged preference. It would be to cnfraU' chise those who from the corrupting habits of bondage are the least fit for freedom ; aifM to subject those to the yoke, upon whom its pres- sure would from novelty be the most intoler- able. Nor would freedom to the Creole negro, though an inestimable boon, be unalloyed with pain, when to receive it he must be banished per- haps from all his beloved connections; a mi- sery I m ] sery whicb the poor African itmst equally site* tain to whatever part cf th« West Indies he maybe carried: in this respect therefore, thfe supposed substitution would be a needless <^u« plication of wretchedness. r Though it is not without pain that I offfer ad* vice upon a condition, the very idea of which is so dishondurable to my country, as th^ prolourobably with new wars, and with new civil re- volutions in that quarter of the globe. Thftt 9w^ which has spread desolation over the old world, is now drawn against th^ inha- bitants of the neVf'* Tlie same Republic which under pretence of giving liberty, h-^s subjugated and enslaved some of the happiest ^i European nations, is now under pretences equally false, atten)pting to reimpose on her enfranchised ne- groes the; yoke of domestic bondage t the only yoke which after all her vaunts she has even by accident broken, and compared to the weight of which, her own military despotism may without irony or grimace^ be called by the name of free* dom* Nor is it only to the negroes of St Domingo^ who revolted from. the caH>whip) and owe her only a constrained recognition of their enfTan<' chis^mentt that France would re- apply the coercion of the drivers. Frpm the black co- lonists of her windward settlements, this con- sistent and grateful Republic would recall the gift of freedom which by her own laws she invjt^ thetn to accept, and which they have faithfully f nd bravely repaid. Regardless of the important services they rendered her at the most arduous crisis of her affairs, and of eight years undeviatjng fidelity, she has forced by La- crosse's attempts the negroes of Guadaloupe into [ 199 ] into insurrection ; and if the assertions of her government deserve credit, has restored the Slave Trade at Cayenne. Such it Gallic attachment to the principles of freedom and j ustice ! ! , , , , But to these counter-revolutionary views, firm resistance has already heen opposed. 6uada« loupe is already in the undisputed possession of the negroes ; and Buonaparte, in his more than S3rrian enterprise against St Domingo, seems likely to he encountered by difficulties not less insuperable than the walls of Acre, .;■»,... Of the probable consequences of this import* ant though distant war, I have attempted a fair investigation; and whatever may be their na- ture in regard to France, they have appeared to be in every possible r^suh big with early perils to the Colonial interests of Great Britain. Even in that event which might be least incom* patible with the safety of private property in our Colonies, their political relation to this country will be imipinently endangered. Ihe attainment of the apparent objects of the Repub* lie has been shewn to be what we are bound no less in a national view to sleprecate, than the freedom and independency of the negroes. Such being our prospects, I have proceeded to enquire what measures those who preside over the affairs of this great Empire ought to pursue ia this alarming crisis, and what to avoid ; and I m I V '." t ^00 ] hhA though the practical ronclusions which have been suggested are chiefly of a nega- tive kindj it has been attempted to point out some measures of active preparatioil, by which the approaching perils may be lessened, and our great maritime and commercial interests in the West Indies, enabled finally perhaps to ride out the storm; On the objectiotis which may be e?tpected t6 be raised to these Remedial expedients J have not been silent The most obvious have been noticed and repelled. But if through the delicacy of the case, thfe novelty and difficulty of the measures proposed, or the tbrmidable opposition made by parties whose particular interests art involved, 3nou should be induced rather to await the natural issue of the disease than resort to such troublesome means of relief, at least the impolicy of urging forward the dangerous crisis, has I trust bfefen sufficiently proved. Were the justice and dignity of the nation hot irreconcileably opposed to the monstrous project which some minds have not been ashamed to cbhceive ;— were the feelings of Englishmen prepared for an alliance with the French Republic, in a Wj^t like that in which she has embarked at St. Domingo ; — were we willing to imbue our hands in the blood of men who if they had n6 conventional claims on our neu^ trality, have yet given us no offence, and possess the t 201 ] tlie negative merit of having abstained during critical times from hostilities against us ; — were we mean enough to become scavengers to the Great Nation, by helpirig her to scour her Co- lonies from what she now chooses to consider as the filth of her own revolutions ;* I say Sir, were British minds ripe for all this deep humi- liation) it has I trust been demonstrated that they ought in plain poHcy to be saved from it ; and that the fatuity of assisting France in this new war would be such as could only be sur-* passed by its baseness. It has been attempted further to shew that if neither through the means I have sug- gested, nor any others that can be devised, our slave-peopled Colonies can be so strengthened as to be secured from the new dangers of theit * The most modest State Paper perhaps that has issued From the Government press of France, even in these days of persiflage and hypocrisy, is General te Clen's late Proclamation to the Negroes of St Domingo, wherein he gravely declaim^ against thofe " abstract principles " that he suf^ses to have banished the cart-whip ; and invites the Negroes to partake the freedom which France as he says ** has extended to all the Countries in Europe that she has conquered — therefore cannot he supposed capable of withholding from them."— The pattern to be sure is in European eyes not \cty inviting ; and yet like the gloomy finery of the undertakers' journeymen) this French freedom would be far too costly for the poor ne. gtots long to wear, should they listen to the worthy General. —They would soon be called upon to strip, and r at on their former rags. situation. M I 202 ] situation, at kast we ought not at the present alarming conjuncture needlessly to encrease their extent, and to enlarge the too great proportion of bur commercial capital already dependent oH their fate. If the foundation be incurably bid, let us not add another story to the building ; nor deposit in it more of our niost costly effects; The fall of our Slave Colonies is probable enough, and would be fatal enough, without add- ing Trinidada, settled by large and recent mer* cantile speculations, to their number. Let us rather try to found in that extensive Island a new and happy system of colonizatiun, which while it produces wealth, may with an equal progress furnish free, strong and faithful hands to defend it. Let the critici^l state of our Western Empire teach us the right use o£ this, its important augmentation ; and lead us so to settle 01 r new Island, that Trinidada may become at once an example, and a protection ; a farm of experiment, and a fortress ; to the rest of our Sugar Colonies. In offering you a chart whereby to steer through the dangerous straits we have entered, the course of greatest safety has been found hap- pily to coincide with that of moral rectitude and honor ; and to be, as far as relates to Trinidada, the only coui-se which we can pursue without shipwreck of consistency, as well aS of conscien- ^ous principle. From From these higher considerations I could not wholly abstain ; but independently of these, the basis of public expediency sufficiently sup- ports the practical opinions that have been of« feredk By the coolest prudential views I am content that those opinions should be tried ; but let prejudice on the other hand concede, that sound policy is not always at variance with the principles of moMd obligation; that measures may be veiy unwise although they are fla^- tiously wicked ; and that there are cases in which a Statesman may by adhering to the dictates of humanity and justice most effectually promote the true interests of his couoliy. / i I am, Sir, ftc &o. APPENDIX. [ 204 ] %' APPENBIX, •*i' N« I. Liberty and EauALiry. j| Extract of the Decree of the National Conven- tion of the ^5th Pluvtose^ the Qd ifear of the French Republic^ One and Indivisible. X H^ National Convention declares that Negro Slavery in all the Colonies is abolished; and consequently that all men without dis- " tinction of colour domiciled in the Colonies are French Citizens, and intitled to all the rights confirmed by the Constitution. It ** looks to the Committee of Public Safety con- " stantly to report on the measures to be taken " to secure the execution of the present decrees " Examined by the Inspectors^ &c. ** Signed, &c. &c. , To the above extract was subjoined the fol* lowing Proclamation, by the Commissaries who attended the expedition to Point-^-Pitre. ** Citizens ! i( <( It It K'^ ..'■' [ 205 ] ** Citizens ! ^ "A Republican Government is not supported by chains, nor ' slavery 1 The National Convention, therefore, has proceeded solemnly to decree liberty to the negroes ; and to intrust the mode of putting the law in force to the Commissaries whom they have delegated in the Colonies. It is necessary then to attend to the natural emancipation, and civil organiza- tion of this body. First, To a proper equality ; V'ithout which the political machine is like a clock whose pendulum has lost its equilibrium and perpetual action. Secondly, an administra- tion general and particular, which shall guarantee property already accumulated, and the produce of labour and industry. '* Citizens of all colours ! your happiness de- pends upon this law, and its execution. The delegates of the nation guarantee to you a sys- tem which, will be the safeguard of all the friends of the French Republic, against those who have already oppressed, and wish again to oppress them. But it is necessary that the white Citi- zens shall give cordially and Tratemally a com-* petent salary for the work of their black, and other brethren of colour ; and it is also neces- sary, that the latter should learn and never for- get, that those who liave no property arc obliged to labour for th(.'ir own subsistence, and that of I 806 ] of their families ; and contribute with the rest by this mean, tp theaupport of their Country. " Citizens, ycuarenot to become equal but to enjoy happiness, and let all partake of it. He that is an oppressor of his fellow Citizens is si monster, that ought to be immediately banished from human society ! The Delegates of the Nation order all administrative bodies, munici-^ palities, armed forces, and all individuals to put into execution the law proclaimed at the head of these presents without delay ; and they de- pend iipon the loyalty of all individuals for the safety of the French Republic, and put under the protection of the law all Citizens, their property and the produce of their industry and labour whatever it may be. . **^ They order the seal to be affixed to the piib-r licfttion of the prea^nt law and proclamsitioa ; at Foint4rPitre in the Island of Guadaloupe iht 19th Prairial, 2d year of the French Republic, One and Indivisible. (Signed.) Pierre Chretien^jj;, Victor HtrctJES'** ' * ^•abiid ... ...J ^mh .VJX3 >.( !(>> APPENPIX. I 207 ] N» II. 1- Toussaihf VOuverturCj General in Chief of the Army of St Domingo^ to all the Civil and Military Officers of the Island. Citizens, After putting an ^d to the War in the South, our first duty has been to return thanks to the Alinighty, which we have done with a zeal becoming so great a blessing. Now, Citizens, it is necessary to consecrate all our moments to the prosperity of St. Domingo, to the public tranquillity, and consequently to the welftire of our Fellow-citizens. But to attain this end in an effectual manner, all the Civil and Military Officers must make it their business, every one in their respective de- partments, to perform the duties of their oihces with devotion and attachment to the public welfare. You i L 208 ] . . You will easily conceive, Citizens, that agri« culture is the support of Government ; since it is the foundation of commcifce and wealth, the source of arts and industry, it keeps every body employed, as being the mechanism of all trades ; and from the moment that every individual becomes useful, it creates public tranquillity ; disturbances disappear, together with idleness, by which they are commonly generated, and every one peaceably enjoys the fruits qf his industry. Officers, civil and military, this is what you must aim at ; such is the plan to be adopted, which I prescribe to you ; and I declare, in the inost peremptory manner, that it shall be enforced, My country demands this salutary step ; I am bound to it by my oflfice, and the security of our liberties demands it imperiously. ■r3/ But in prder to secure our liberties, M'hich are indispcusible to our happiness, every individual must be usefully employed, so ?is to contribute to the public good, and the general tranquil- lity. . Considering that the soldier, who has sacred diities to perform, as being the safeguard of the people, and in perpetual activity, to ejcecute the orders of his Chief, cither for maintaining in-r terior tranquillity, or for fighting abroad the • enemies of the country, is strictly subordinate to his superior oHicers; and as it is of great imr ;,. ;/ jjortancQ t m ] portance thftt pyeys^ef^, driver^, 9114 |tel4'»e« groes, who Mi. l\^& mmw ^^^ ^h^^^ s^efioxs^ lBho^l4 <:qin4vict; t)^m«e)v^ ^9 o^P^r^* suhal-s terns, aa4 spirfw in ijifll^^ver pay PPA?^^ or asQWi«f, 4§vif"(tes from Ws d\^, he i^ d^U- yerp4 over tp f^ Conrt^Tnart- /, to h^ tfkd awj punished according to the laws of the i(epijibli^| for in military ^eryipe nq fanJ^ i^ to h(? f^iyoured when guilty j th^ over^eer?^ drivers^ ajiwj fi^" Upgro^ a9 iiuhjpct t|9 pippi^ta^t i^bpujr^ ^4 equally sujtfprdinM^ .^ their wp^jriors, i^haU hf p^p^8hed ift \\kp ip^jier, f^ piisie of Mm in Ibeir W«pective d^tiest Whereas 1^ jspldifiT ^^no^ teav^ his /company, feis battalipfv <9r half-hrig#e, ^ft4 p^ter iiitp anptjlw?r, wth9\^t the i^vere^t pun^^ibmei^t, mr 1^9 ptptvjded with a permiss^o?^ if) due fpfffii fporo ,hi§ Qiwf; fi?ld-p(Bgroes sf yp forhidd^ Ibo qjfj^ th^lr re^p^liyf plantations wi^P^^t ^ i^wfu} p^-^ »is§ioii; this m !?y pp fof^s M-^H^^ tp, sii^^ they change their plqic^ pf febpw ^^ they ple^ g<^ to iH^d ftp, and F»y npt Ihp l^ft ^teptlojj tQ ^grfeuUMie* ^houisfh 4® only wiww of %i4*- iftg wstf ai^flc? te *hf mijit^, ^h?ir pf,9l;ef^pfff ; they even conceal theui9c}vf;§ i^ tQyfmi ij? V4' >ges, aii4 miW4^t*ms, wh^Pt 9\hr^ W the pr«epii^§ pf gppd prder, fhfy Ijy^ by plwf}^, ftfid iA a 9tftt« pf pf^ju bf^tjlity \9 m'p^y^ p ' Whereas, ""Whereas, since the revoltltion, labourers of both seres, then too youtig to be employed in the field, refuseto go to it tioW under pretext of freedom, spend their time in warideririg aboiit, and give a bad example to the other cultivators; ti'ferle, on tlie other hand; the Genierils, Officers, Subalterns, and Sold iera,^ ^ af^e lit a/ stat^ of con- stant activity to maintain the 'sacred rights of the people: " '«.'...»;.■ ^^;:'>u':.., ;..;. ii 4, ;:,<:;;(; ■ . . . ' ; ■ . r .. "•,•■• •• ' ' ' ? ' '* • 'i * And whereas, m^ 'l^roclamattM of the JSoth Brumairej of the 7th year, to 'the people of St/ Domingo, was calcuUtec^ to establish an uni- foiih system of incessant SLii6^ la1)oriouS industry ; at the same time^ tfiat it' re ei^tci^tipi^.^^f ..j^ ' this bi* dly t^^dh^bl^i ittd 1 H&ttgl-^self that their it^\, iii M^tilfg tll« td t^Cdrie the (mblic t>ros« |flfHty» ^ ilbt lid lAdAetatary^ dcmvinc^ as ttii^y MMtft b6 ti^ L&btny eaimdl exiflt witiidnt ^ttbUsh^d, aftii]M!ift«dttpWhOftv«r it is Heces* SSfy, ^\^ dVi tikliatttd)l6$ 8d that tto mie liMiy ]^(^|jttk it w^a pufa^ )feh^ Hi 1^ ^m^ mid. otfa^r newspapers, scniie time ill I)«««KiM list, wit^ an latlroduetioti> W^& M. Wimem l^s^M's X>)iiMitatien, ^fMI^MSfbl^ t»4h«» iVfiltetittu, and tonfinoos them. t 217 J tliem. The paper certainly, i^ genuine, proved thdt Toussaint had established, or inras endes^ vouring to introduce a very strict military go- vemment ; but ^ lAUl must be gl^ssly ignorant of the nature of West India bondage, not to know that such a government however to Eng* lish eyes disgusting, is, when compared to do- mestic slavery, a substitute most ardently to be desired. * ^ ty^- ' POSTSCRlFr. ' [ £18 ] 'U: f. ,0>.:iKjyiii. •;v :» rrari >": .: ^ W.CHI jl ■ . ■ ' '..■■■ - ' ! • . , • , , .. ' ■ 'f f March 29, 1802. ' . i ■ At the moment when this work is ready tc issue from ^he press, fresh accounts from St. Domingo officially published in France, are laid before the English Public ; and if the information contained in the Advertisement pre- fixed to these Letters, was not unnecessary to guard the writer from being: suspected of disin- genuousness, it seems still more requisite now to strengthen that precaution, by requesting the Reader's attention to the date of the present publication ; for so fully are some of the most important of his conjectures confirmed by these official papers, that he might otherwise very probably be suspected of having wished to give to speculations founded on known events, a false air of political foresight. Let it there- fore be observed that this work is delivered to the Public on the morning after the publication of General Leclerc's and Admiral Villaret's dis- patches of February 16, in the London news- papers. ^ The '- ' I 219 ] ■ T))C Author desires that these dispatches inay be compared with his observations in the first Letter, respecting the probable in- tentions of the French Government ; and that the following passage i^ Leclerc's Proclama- tion may be particularly noticed : " Yesterday their perfidsous intentions wer^ unmasked.-r^ General Toussaint sent me his children with a letter in which he assures me that there was nothing he so v^uch desired as the prosperity of the Colony ^ and that he was ready to obey all the orders that I should give him, I ordered him to come before me, and gave him my word that J would empfoy Hi^ A8 my Lieutenant GENER..AL.— He did not reply tc this orderywr- ther than by phrases that were only designed to gain time. . My ordees from the .French Government are, that I promptly re- store PROSPERITY AND ABUNDANC^i:. If I suffer myself to be amused by crafty and perji- dious artifices^ the Colony, will be the theatre of a long civil war" The Reader will observe, that the particular nature of Toussaint 's temporising phrases and the contents of the letter whith he sent by his children to Leclerc, are wholly suppressed ; as well as thoi^? orders of the Frencli Govern- ment^ rather than submit to which, this ex- traordinary man whom the virtuous Leclerc calls perfidious, refused the ci]^ce of second in [ ^20 \ in ertmmand, ti^ith the rank of Lieutenant General, artd chose to encounter all the perils of resistance. ^ Unfortunately, Toussaint cannot state to us his !^wn case ; we ttiust be long content to re- ceive such accounts only fVom St. Domingo as the French Governnjent chooses to publish ; but in the mean time let us reflect, that the commu* tiications on both sides were such as the French General in a Proclamation published in the Co-' lony did not venture to disclose ; and let the words ** my others art promptly td restore pros* periiy 'And nhundttnce'' be compared with theit remarkable context ; and with the observations contained in this work fVom pages 28 to 49. it seems to pieep out in «pight of the address of the l>encl. GdHtahlish [ 891 ] re-establish in this Colony the form qf « go- vernment prescribed hy ikti lm» of J he Mother Country f and protect thoge principhs which QifH alone preserve, and upon which repfiseit th^ common interest if all the European Fomirs m their establishments in the Ant Hies.*' What are those principles and that form of GvQemmtnt in the Antilles which are thus identified with the British policy in those Islands ? Surely after reading this passage, we cannot hesitate to pro- nounce, that the restitution of the old system in all its rigour is the direct object of France, and nust abhor the hypocrisy that holdi> out at the same moment a guarantee of their freedom to the Negroes. It is further to be remarked on these very in- teresting dispatches, that the Colonists whom the French Commanders have prevailed upon to join them, are chiefly mulattoes, who were presumably ire^ before the Revolution and per- haps hnve private interests as masters on the side of th*: Republic. Cleroaux who betrayed the pos '.V listed to him, is described as a person of thai ;j:reat danger till he wm subdued by Toussaint The [ £22 ] ThlB Author regrets that withoutf urther delay- ing the publication of this work, which has been already deferred too long, it is impossible to offer all the important observations which these dis- patches suggest, and especially to remark upon that 24>|jlication to the government of Jamaica^ which confirms another of his conjectures, v, ; ' ,.:,..jj.,..-Li:: ■ fb *yr:' i? ^xtoj^ <>' ^ '■ . i '.• ' ' ■'" /Uitt '%.* .. .. ■■ r : f • ; ij.a