vation is not leffened but rather encreased, if the letters and other compofitions of Roland were written, as is generally believed, by his wife.

Mr. Roland, in a letter to the departments, on the fubject of the maffacres, dated the 4th of September, ufes other fimilitudes. "I know that revolutions are not to be calculated by common rules but I know, likewife, that the power which makes them, ought foon to arrange itfelf under obedience to the law, if total deftruction be not intended. The anger of the people and the movement of infurrection, are comparable to the action of a torrent which overturns obftacles that no other power is able to deftroy; but which, fpreading wider and wider in its progrefs, will carry ravage and devaftation far and wide, if it does not foon return to its ufual courfe. It is in the nature of things, and of the human heart, that victory fhould always be followed by a certain degree of excefs: the fea, agitated by a tempeft, roars after the tempeft is over; but every thing has its bounds where it ought at laft to be terminated." Even in thefe fublime and gentle admonitions to the people we difcover the latent principle of all the evil; which ought not to be compared to a torrent which ceafes with the rains, or the diffolution of the fnow by which it is occafioned, but to a well of bitter waters conftantly fpringing up into poisonous ftreams of mifery and death. The French nation are admonished of what they ought to do, or not to do; but the grand principle of infurrection and revolt is ftill approved, held facred

ftill, and compared to whatever is grand and affecting in the courfe of nature. Yet it is allowed that infurrection may be too long continued. If," Mr. Roland continues, "diforganization becomes a matter of habit and custom; if men, zealous, but without knowledge and kill, pretend to mix perpetually with adminiftration, and to ftop its courfe; if, fupported by fome popular favour, obtained by a great degree of ardour, and maintained by a ftill greater facility of making harangues, they fpread abroad miftruft, and fow calumny and accufation, excite fury and dictate profcriptions,-the government is then only a fhadow*." Though thefe remarks may have an appearance of criticifm rather than of narration, yet nothing is more to our purpofe than to trace the great caufe amidst all the fymptoms of the difcafe. For light on this fubject, we cannot but acknowledge our obligations to a publication by one of our countrymen, who witneffed the volcano in its moft violent eruptions, and marked with accuracy and enetration, the I ftrata, difclofed, of moral nature. On the paffage juft quoted from the Letters of Roland, the author of the Hiftory of Jacobinifm obferves, "Thofe who patronize revolt, fhould norliken it, when fupported by principle, to a river that is to return to its bed: it should be likened to a fire that never ceases till all is confumed. Have not all thofe who have witneffed the revolution, feen that the habit of revolt was fubver five of order, law, and liberty, as Roland fays? And is it not evident, that what men are taught to con fider as a dufy, is very likely to

become

tion and anarchy, to greater and greater exceffes and crimes, but alfo blinded their understandings, contracted their views, and involv ed them in continued contradictions. Though the primary movers and leaders of revolution, agrecably to the genius of the French nation, entertained the fame projects of national aggrandizement with their fucceffors, they intended, at leaft profeffed to purfue great and glorious ends, by wife and virtuous means. Mirabeau's plan was to produce a change of manners in his countrymen, by altering the fyftem of education, in a space of time not less than fifteen years; and to extend the influence of France, by enlarging that of other nations. Had Mirabeau lived, the vices and defects of the conftitution of 1794, would, perhaps, have been corrected by appeals to the primary, whofe rights had been ufurped by the Conftituent Affembly, and by reftoring the King to liberty and political importance. In other countries, as well as France, there were many men who abhorred the crimes of the 10th of Auguft and 2d of September, yet ftill thought it expedient to adopt the principles from which they flowed.

become a habit? Why then, infead of preaching eternally against revolt carried too far, and continued too long, do not they at once declare that revolt is illegal, and, inftead of being a duty, is a crine? This is the language that ought to be spoke; but every one willing to referve to himself and friends the privilege of revolting, when to them it seems proper, refufes to make this declaration, and each has, in the end, fallen a facrifice to this terrible article of the declaration of rights." Roland, and the other reformers of France were feasible that the French character was not adapted to a republic; but they reckoned upon the change that would be introduced into that character by the inftitutions of a free form of government; not recollecting that written laws are, in themfelves, but lifelefs things; and that they derive their whole energy from the activity of the human paffions that carries them into execution. Where the morals of men are grofsly depraved, they either fuffer equal and juft law to become obfolete, or ufe their Fberty only as a cloke of licentioufnets. Not only did the paflions and immoral habits of men hurry them on, in the progrefs of revolu

F 2

CHAP.

were reduced to it by a long courfe of calamitous events; many of which took place feveral years previous to 1792. None of thefe have we yet mentioned in any for mer volume: partly because we could receive no information but what was confufed and contradictory; and partly becaufe, by waiting a little, we hoped to prefent our readers with a clear and uninterrupted view of the whole. Accounts have become more fully authentic, now that the fpirit of faction has in fome meafure fubfided, and time has begun to clear away the mift of prejudice. We fhall, therefore, proceed to delineate a fhort fketch of the history of thofe iflands during the years 1789, 90, 91, and

92.

All the inhabitants were ranged under three great claffes. Thefe were the whites, the negrocs, and the fans meleès, or gens de couleur. The firft, it is fcarcely neceflary to remark, was compofed of Europeans who had been attracted by hopes of fecurity and gain, to fettle in the new world: the second of thofe unhappy Africans, who had been dragged from their native fhore, deprived of their liberty, and obliged to fpend their lives in the cultivation of the foil; the third, or people of colour, of the offspring from an intermixture betwixt the other two. As the defcendants always inherited the lot of their fathers, thefe three claffes comprehend every inhabitant of the ifland; and betwixt the three there was drawn An impaffible line.

The fyftem of internal government which prevailed in thofe itlands, was as bad as the imagination. of man can well conceive:-it was monftrous and unnatural: it had plavery for its basis, and the moft

dreadful oppreffion was its fruit. No order of the community could be faid to be free-their chief privilege confifted in infulting and injuring their inferiors. The negroes who were subjected to the arbitrary will of a mafter, were in a fituation fcarcely more deplorable than the gens de couleur. The un. fortunate mulattoes (tho' not abfo lutely private property) had often reafon to envy the lot of those that were: they were not only to every generation deprived of all shadow of political liberty, and prohibited from exercifing any liberal profeffion, but they were confidered as belonging to an inferior fpecies, as bordering on the brutes. They were fubjected to the most intolerable grievances; they were permitted by the laws to be infulted, and even beat with impunity. As it was not in their cafe as in that of the negroes, the intereft of any one to protect them, fo they were cruelly oppreffed by all. The brutifh uncultivated negro, fuffers only from the pain a stripe inflicts upon his nerves:-to the mulattoes this treatment was torture. From being in eafy circumftances, and from having received a good education, many of them were poffeffed of fine feelings and acute fentibility.

The whites themfelves could boaft but little of their freedom and independence; they groaned under defpotifm in all its rigours. The government was adminiftered by a governor general, and an intendant named by the King of France, whofe power was abfolute in their refpective colonies. They framed laws, impofed taxes, and commanded the military. An appeal lay to them from all the courts of juftice; and they were even flamefully open