He stated, as
another argument against the expedition, that it was totally
unnecessary, and therefore criminal; for that every thing _was going on
well_ in St. Domingo. _The proprietors were in peaceable possession of
their estates; cultivation was making a rapid progress; the Blacks were
industrious, and beyond example happy_. He conjured him, therefore, in
the name of humanity, not to reverse this beautiful state of things. But
alas! his efforts were ineffectual. The die had been cast: and the only
reward, which he received from Buonaparte for his manly and faithful
representations, was banishment to the Isle of Elba.
Having carried my examination into the conduct of the Negroes after
their liberation to 1802, or to the invasion of the island by Leclerc, I
must now leave a blank for nearly two years, or till the year 1804. It
cannot be expected during a war, in which every man was called to arms
to defend his own personal liberty, and that of every individual of his
family, that we should see plantations cultivated as quietly as before,
or even cultivated at all. But this was not the fault of _the
emancipated Negroes_, but of _their former masters_. It was owing to the
prejudices of the latter, that this frightful invasion took place;
prejudices, indeed, common to all planters, where slavery obtains,
from the very nature of their situation, and upon which I have made my
observations in a former place. Accustomed to the use of arbitrary
power, they could no longer brook the loss of their whips.
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