178 Jeanette Needham. 
he insisted that the king’s approval was necessary to any legis- 
lative act to admit them.?® 
This charge of lack of summons by the king had come up 
in the assembly it appears, but had been met by the production 
of a ministerial letter, which promised that San Domingo should 
have a deputation to the first session of the estates. If such 
were the case, then it was virtually called to the states general 
ol 1759; 
In the midst of the discussion in the assembly, another question 
involved in the affair of San Domingo appeared. In connection 
with the matter of representation in a country where there was 
perhaps only one tenth as many whites as blacks, the question 
of negro slavery naturally arose, particularly when it was being 
agitated so strongly in England. This turn of the debate gave 
men who had instructions touching slavery an opportunity to 
present the views in their cahiers. Lanjuinais, Clermont-Ton- 
nerre, Target, Biauzat, Baron d’Harambure and La Rochefou- 
cauld, all disclosed such instructions. Lanjuinais asked ‘that, 
in the case of San Domingo, slaves should not be counted since 
their masters could not represent them. 
La Rochefoucauld is said to have made the request that the 
question of slavery should form a subject for the future con- 
sideration of the assembly.*! 
In the matter of determining how many representatives were 
to be admitted, there were various proposals, some favoring 
twenty, some twelve, and others ten. The Marquis of Sillery 
and Delaville Le Roulx wished to recognize the entire delegation 
as a means of binding the distant colony firmly to the mother- 
land,” but Target, it seems, would make admission provisional. 
Two members are recorded as having opposed so large a number. 
Bouche regarded ten as a just number in view of the preponder- 
ance of the black population over the white and of the com- 
29 Courrier de Provence, Lettre XIV, 5-6. 
°© Assemblée nationale, I, 261; Moniteur, I, 104. 
31 Point du jour, I, 64-65; Jallet, 107. The second merely notes that the 
question of African slavery arose. Procés-verbal, No. 9, 6 may refer to this. 
32 Point du jour, I, 65; Moniteur, I, 104. The first gives the opinion of 
the Marquis of Sillery; the second, that of Delaville Le Roulx. 
33 Mon.teur, I, 104. : 
292 
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