226 A. D. 1 791. 



become a fcene of carnage and defolation, from the effed:s of which it will 

 require the repofe and profperity of many years to recover it. 



In all the Weft-India colonies there are three clafTes of people, whofe 

 conditions in the community are marked by ftrong lines of diftinftion. 

 The firft comprehends the white people of all ranks, who enjoy all kinds 



of political rights according to the conftitution of the colony The 



fecond confifts of the free people of colour, fome of them black, but 

 moftly of a mixed breed of all the gradations between white and black. 

 In the French Weft-Indies the people of this clafs are allowed to poflefs 

 property of every kind, and fome of them are very opulent. Being 

 much more numerous in the French, than in the Britifti, iflands in pro- 

 portion to the whites *, the hatred of the later is rendered more in- 

 veterate by jealoufy and apprehenfion, and they are treated with great, 

 and, I may fay, authorized, contempt by the very loweft of the whites. 

 In the Britifti iflands the child of a meftee by a white (being the fourth 

 in defcent from a negro anceftor) enjoys every privilege of a white per- 

 fon : but the laws of the French colonies continued the ftigma and dif- 

 qualifications of the negro blood to the remoteft pofterity, fubjedted 

 them to many grievous hardfliips and labours, and abfolutely excluded 

 them from every office, profefllon, or employment, proper for a gentle- 

 man, except that of a planter: fo that thefe unfortunate people enjoyed 

 very few of the natural, or civil, rights of free men. But they ac- 

 counted themfelves very inuch fuperior to the flaves, upon whom they 

 retaliated (if I may be permitted the expreflion) the infults and oppref- 

 lions they fuflfered from the whites. — The third, and by far the moft 

 numerous, clafs comprehends all the flaves, whether negroes or of mix- 

 ed blood, who are the abfolute property of their mafters as much as 

 their fellow-labourers, the mules and oxen, and cannot be faid to pof- 



fefs any political rights whatfoever No harmony could at any time be 



expeded to fubfift among people.with fuch jarring interefts and fo many 

 fources of exafperation. It is not furpriling then, that the accounts 

 they received of the political ftate of France ferved to increafe the ani- 

 mofities among thofe clafl'es in the French Weft-Indies. In S\ Domingo 

 the white people, difpleafed with the condud: of the national afl^embly 

 of France, whom they thought inclined to be too favourable to the 

 other clafles, eleded a colonial aflembly by their own authority and pro- 

 pofed to open their ports to all nations, and even to transfer their alleg- 

 iance to the crowr of Great Britain. The free people of colour, en- 

 couraged by a decree of the national aflembly, which was afterwards 

 repealed, claimed an equal participation of rights and privileges with 

 the whites. And the flaves thought, that the commotions in the colony 

 prefented a favourable opportunity for them alfo to aflert their claim to 

 liberty, and made a moft formidable iniurredion at Cap Francois 



* In S'. Doningo the whites were eftimated at Jamaica the number of the free people of colour is 

 30,000, and the free people of colour at 24,000, eftimated at about one fixth of that of the whites. 

 wlicreof 4,7C0 were capable of bearing arms. In See above, V. iv, p. 156. 



