138] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1590 
law from any fhare in the civil go- 
vernment, ad confequently from 
giving their votes in the election of 
magiltrates or deputies. | Thefe 
now infifted upon a ‘full participa- 
tion of all the rights and privileges 
of free citizens, without any regard 
to the diftin€tions of birth or co- 
four, which, they faid, had been 
formed in the days of defpotifn, 
darknefs, and ignorance ; and being 
much more numerous, as well as 
far exceeding in bodily ftrength 
and courage the luxurious and 
enervated whites, they fupported 
their claims, not only with an ap- 
parent fenfe of their {uperiority, but 
with all that prompt intemperance 
and arrogance, which feems to be 
peculiarly charaéteriftic of that 
race. 
Both parties fent deputies to the 
national affembly ; jarring, contra- 
dictory, and inexplicit decrees were 
fent out: fome of which were faid 
not to be underftood, fome imprac+ 
ticable, and others would not be 
‘ obeyed. The colonial affembly was 
fufpected by the national of aiming 
at independency; and it was faid 
that the planters talked publicly of 
‘calling in the Eneglifh and furren- 
dering the ifland to them. Some 
of the decrees were underftood by 
the mulattoes to confer rights on 
them, which the whites would not 
allow them to poffefs, and which 
the others prepared to wreft from 
them by force; and until this at- 
tempt was made, the animofity, and 
mutual abhorrence of the parties, 
was increaled to a degree feldom 
equalled. In proceis of time, com- 
miflioners were repeatedly fent from 
France; but thefe carrying out 
with them the violent'political pre- 
judices which they had imbibed at 
home, and being gencrally men de+ 
void of principle, if not of abilities,’ 
inftead of attempting to heal dif- 
ferences, they, upon their arrival, 
depending upon the chances which 
length of time, difance, and the 
uncertain “fate of government in 
the mother country, might produce’ 
in ‘their favour, looked only to pro- 
cure immediate power and confe- 
quence, by placing themfelves at 
the head of fome of the contending 
factions; and thus rufhing at once 
as principals, into all the rage and 
fury of civil difcord, increafed to its 
utmoft pitch, that confufion and 
mifchief which they were intended 
to remedy, 
Tt would fll a volume of no ine 
confiderable fize to give only a brief 
narrative of che troubles which en+ 
fued in the French iflands; of the 
continual difputes which arofe, and 
the fhort irtermiiions of feeming’ 
conciliation which took place be- 
tween the whites and the mulattoes, 
the mafters and their flaves, the \go- 
vernors and the colonial affemblies, 
and between the national affembly 
at home, and the two laft: With- 
out taking into the account the po- 
litical factions which raged, and in- 
creafed the general confufion and 
fury ; while every arrival from 
France was pregnant with new 
fources of difcord. In St. Do- 
mingo alone, three different- colo 
nial aflemblies were chofen in three 
different parts of the ifland, who all 
fitting at the, fame time, were orly 
diftinguifhed by their endlefs con 
tention. : 
A curious obfervation, which may 
not, perhaps, be entirely unworthy 
the contemplation of philofophy, 
arifes from a curfory confideration 
of this fubject; which is, that man- 
kind are fearcely more flow in the 
progrefs of moral Distasi 
Thaw 
