consciences, and covered with eternal infamy. The abhorrence in which they are held by the present race of mankind, only precedes the execration of posterity. Bury then in eternal oblivion every sentiment of hatred, and taste the delicious pleasure of conferring benefits on your oppressors. Repress even too marked expressions of your joy, which, in causing them to reflect on their own injustice towards you, will make their remorse still more pungent."

II. THE HORRORS OF EMANCIPATION.

These "horrors" are commonly supposed to have preceded, or to have been mixed up with, those on which we have dwelt in the preceding pages. Without a popular misapprehension of this sort, "the Horrors of St. Domingo" would have been truly a good-for-nothing argument against the abolition of slavery. To make the argument of any use, it was necessary to persuade the public either that emancipation itself, or the efforts made to obtain it, were the direct cause of the insurrection. The fact of the existence of such a persuasion is more obvious than the means by which it was produced. To ninety-nine men in every hundred, probably, a more astonishing revelation could hardly be made, than that the great and only† insurrection in St. Domingo took place before any emancipation had been effected or thought of. The light, of this important fact, however, is beginning to shine and do its work.

On the 4th of April, 1792, the French national assembly again extended to the mulattoes and free negroes the rights of citizenship. To carry this decree into force and to punish the disturbers of the colony, three commissioners, Messrs. Santhonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud were sent out with a force of 8,000 men. The decree under which they were appointed, had nothing to do with emancipation, and the commissioners disclaimed any intention to emancipate. One of the objects which they were sent to accomplish was, to reduce the revolted negroes who had established themselves in the mountains. The commissioners, however, met with great resistance on the part of the white planters,

This letter bears date, Paris 8th of June, 1791, and was addressed to the citizens of color in the French West Indies, concerning the decree of the 15th of May. + We except of course some trifling disturbances of very ancient date.

who struggled to the last against admitting the free colored class to a share of their political rights. It was not till the beginning of 1793, that they had established their authority over the whole island. In the last resort the whites succeeded in procuring a new governor of their own party in the place of Desparbes who had resigned. This was M. Galbaud. He arrived at Cape François on the 7th of May, 1793, and entered immediately upon his government to the great joy of the white aristocracy. His first act was to declare his independence of the civil commissioners, who were then engaged in quelling disturbances in the West and South. On the 10th of June they returned to the Cape, and entered upon an examination of the credentials of the new governor. There was a decree of the national assembly that no proprietor of an estate in the West Indies should hold the government of the colony in which his estate was situated. Galbaud had a coffee plantation in St. Domingo, and was unable to give any satisfactory reason why he had not informed the Executive Council of this fact before accepting the appointment.* The commissioners ordered him immediately to return to France. Galbaud rallied his partizans and attacked the commissioners in the government house, with two or three thousand men. Now it was, that "the horrors of emancipation" commenced. Says Edwards, " a scene now opens, which, if it does not obliterate, exceeds at least, all that has hitherto been related of factions, anarchy, and savage cruelty, in this unfortunate colony."

And what was this new and unexampled "horror"? The commissioners despatched an agent to call in to their aid the revolted negroes, promising them pardon for the past, freedom for the future, AND THE PLUNDER OF THE CITY. Surely this was a charter broad enough to warrant a very liberal enactment of "horrors" on the part of the rebels. "The rebel generals, Jean François and Biassou," says Edwards, "rejected their offers; but on the 21st about noon, (just after that Galbaud and most of his adherents,

* Bryan Edwards, page 115.

+ Clarkson, on the authority of the French historians gives these commissioners no agency in calling in the insurgent negroes, but states that after the destruction of the Cape, they proclaimed freedom to the slaves in the neighborhood who would range themselves under the banner of the republic.

finding their cause hopeless, had retired to the ships) a negro chief called Macaya, with upwards of three thousand of the revolted slaves, entered the town, and began an universal and indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children. The white inhabitants fled from all quarters to the sea-side, in hopes of finding shelter with the governor on board the ships in the harbor; but a body of the mulattoes cut off their retreat, and a horrid butchery ensued, a description of which every heart susceptible of humanity must be unable to bear. Suffice it to say, that the slaughter continued with unremitting fury from the 21st to the evening of the 23d; when the savages having murdered all the white inhabitants that fell in their way, set fire to the buildings; and more than half the city was consumed by the flames. The commissioners, themselves, either terrified at beholding the lamentable and extensive mischief which they had occasioned, or afraid to trust their persons with their rebel allies, sought protection under the cover of a ship of the line," (p. 116.) This candid and christian author having detailed so dreadful an effect of what he would have his readers believe an act of emancipation, passes on to the more "pleasing task of rendering due homage to the gallant and enterprising spirit of (his) countrymen in their noble-but alas! hitherto unavailing endeavors to restore peace, subordination, and good government on this theatre of anarchy and bloodshed," i. e. he narrates the efforts of the British to secure slavery and make the colony their own.

Galbaud and a troop of adherents came to the United States, to tell the story of the massacre, burning and plundering of Cape François as one of "the horrors of emancipation"! By these precious defenders of "good government" it was, that hundreds of our good republicans were taught, "if you free the slaves they will turn round and cut their master's throats. Oh yes, has it not been proved in St. Domingo ?" On these horrors we have not a word of comment to offer, having no disposition to deny that rebel slaves will cut their master's throats when invited to.

The promise of freedom to the revolted slaves who should resort to the standard of the republic was evidently a step towards a general emancipation, and rendered that event well nigh inevitable. The peaceable slaves, who wished for liberty, had now only to come to the camp of the com

missioners by the way of the mountains. But the grand result was suddenly brought about by the appearance of a mighty antagonist on the side of the masters. As early as 1791, many of the planters had made application to the King of Great Britain, to take possession of the colony, but as this was before the commencement of hostilities between the latter and France, their application was treated with neglect. Not so in 1793. In the summer of that year, the Governor of Jamaica was directed to accept terms of capitulation from such of the inhabitants of St. Domingo as wished for the protection of the British government, and to send a detachment of troops sufficient to keep possession of the places surrendered till reinforcements should arrive from England. The military force under the command of the republican commissioners, amounted to 22,000 men, but was so dispersed as to present no formidable obstacle to an invasion. The moment, therefore, they heard of the designs of the British, they turned their minds to the very natural expedient of making peace with the slaves. To do this effectually, it was necessary to promise freedom to all who should take sides with the republic against the British. This is what our pro-slavery historian calls "the most desperate expedient, to strengthen their party, that imagination can conceive." His account of the horrors of this rash and desperate act is too amusing to be omitted. "From this moment it might have been foreseen that the colony was lost to Europe; for though but few of the negroes, in proportion to the whole, joined the commissioners, many thousands choosing to continue slaves as they were, and participate in the fortunes of their masters; yet vast numbers in all parts of the colony (apprehensive probably that this of fer of liberty was too great a favor to be permanent) availed themselves of it to secure a retreat to the mountains, and possess themselves of the natural fortresses, which the interior country affords. Successive bodies have since joined them, and it is believed that upwards of 100,000 have established themselves in those recesses, into a sort of savage republic, (oh the savages!) like that of the black Charaibes of St. Vincent, where they subsist on the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and the wild cattle which they procure by

* Bryan Edwards, page 140.

hunting, prudently declining offensive war, and trusting their safety to the rocky fortresses which nature has raised around them, and from which, in my opinion, it will be no easy undertaking to dislodge them"!

Such is the representation given by Edwards of the first decree of emancipation. To understand more distinctly the facts to which he refers, it is necessary to remark, that after the affair of the Cape, Polverel left Santhonax there, and proceeded in his capacity of commissioner to Port au Prince and Les Cayes. In both the West and the South he found all quiet, and cultivation flourishing. As soon, however, as the slaves had heard of what had taken place at the Cape they became much excited, and it appeared certain that the safety of the planters as well as the public peace required that emancipation should be extended throughout the island. On the 27th of August, Polverel issued his proclamation from Les Cayes, declaring, that to encourage the negroes to assist in repelling the British, all manner of slavery was abolished, and the negroes were thenceforward to consider themselves as free citizens. He expatiates upon the necessity of labor, requires the negroes to engage in their usual labors from year to year, but gives them the liberty of choosing their own masters. One-third of the crop was to be theirs as a reward of their labor. "The whole,' says our candid historian, "appears to have been a matchless piece of absurdity; betraying a lamentable degree of ignorance concerning the manners and dispositions of the negroes, and totally impracticable in itself"! How fearfully horrible! And how sad to relate, that even its total impracticability did not prevent its complete success! Both at Les Cayes and Port au Prince, Polverel opened registries for the names of the planters who concurred in the measure: and, strange to tell, in the former place, nearly all, and in the latter a large majority subscribed their names as supporters of this "matchless piece of absurdity." It was from this fatal blunder of Polverel and the planters, all so lamentably igno rant of the negro character, that those horrors resulted which Bryan Edwards has so pathetically described. The act of emancipation kindled the patriotism of the negroes to such a degree, that the British labored in vain to introduce their good government." "The colony was lost to Europe." We will not here anticipate what belongs to the