78] 
spirit of resistance, raged with pe- 
culiar violence in the island of St. 
Domingo. ' At Cape Francois, it 
"was proposed to seize all the ships 
in the harbour, and to confiscate 
the property of the Freneh mer- 
chants. A motion was made in 
the provincial assembly, to pull 
down the national colours, and to 
erect the British standard in their 
room. The authority of the go- 
vernor general was completely an- 
nihilated. To ensure his personal 
safety, he was obliged to promise 
that he would suspend the execu- 
tion of the decree, and send a re- 
monstrance against it to France. 
As the most proper method to se- 
cure the peace of the colony, the 
different parishes proceeded to elect 
deputies for a general assembly, 
which should’assume sovereign au- 
thority, and resist the encroach- 
ments of France. These deputies, 
to the number of 176, met at Leo- 
gane, on the 9th of August 1791, 
and having declared themselves the 
general assembly of the French part 
of St. Domingo, adjourned till the 
25th of the same month, when 
theyresolved to meet at Cape Fran- 
ois. 
But before that day arrived, the 
most fertile and populous plains 
were turned into scenes of dreary 
desolation and indiscriminate car- 
nage. 
The people of colour had long 
been in a state of irreconcileable 
enmity with the whites. When 
they laid aside hostilities soon after 
the death of Ogé, it was far from 
proceeding from the suggestions of 
amity or good-will :—their resent- 
ment abated not; hatred still lurk- 
ed in their minds; they only de- 
ferred the hour of vengeance.— 
Owing to these dispositions, a civil 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1762. 
war was sooner or later to break 
out between the two parties. 
The decree of the 15th of May 
was the brand which lighted 
up the flames,—that set the 
combustible materials which had 
long been prepared, into immedi- 
ate action. When the mulattoes 
observed the hostile disposition of 
the white people; when they saw 
their determined resolution to re-+ 
ject their claims; when they heard 
of massacre and proscription, they 
concluded that the time was now 
arrived when they must be ruined 
forever, or make good their pre- 
tensions by force, and purchase 
their security with the sword. They ~ 
therefore flocked together from 
every quarter in arms, resolved to 
conquer or die. Death in the field, 
they said, was preferable to dying 
on a scaffold; or to being butchered 
in cold blood. An honourable 
death wasall that at first they could 
hope for. They were inferior in 
numbers to the whites; much more 
so in discipline and skill. 
The whites saw the coming 
storm ; but mistaking its force, they 
despised its violence:—they had 
little doubt of easily quelling the 
insurrection. 
At this moment of anxiety and 
alarm, a plan was devised among 
the mulattoes, by which they hoped 
not only to save themselves, but an- 
nihilate their enemies. This was, to 
call in the assistance of the negroes. 
This scheme at first seemed im- 
practicable. The people of colour 
had always treated their slaves with 
great cruelty and harshness. The 
slaves, imagining them to be little 
better than themselves, could the 
less brook their ill-treatment. There 
had constantly subsisted between 
them the greatest rancour and ani- 
mosity- 
