ページの画像
PDF
ePub

ART. VIII. Examen de PEsclavage en general, et particuliere ment de l'Esclavage des Nègres dans les Colonies Françaises de 'Amerique. Par V. D. C. Ancien Avocat et Colon de St Domingue. 2 tom. 8vo. pp. 600. Paris, 1802 & 3.

ON N looking into this work, we were delighted to find that it contained, what we had long been extremely defirous to fee, a fair, open, and avowed eulogium upon flavery, with a manful and confiftent vindication of the flave trade, founded upon an explicit ftatement of those principles which must neceffarily be adopted by its fupporters, but which fo few of them, among us, can be brought to acknowledge. In this view, the work is very interefting, as bringing the question to a fair iffue, and affording a full and steady view of thofe doctrines, of which we have only been able to obtain an imperfect and hafty glimpfe, in the reafonings of those who have in this country defended the fyftem of colonial flavery. We have occafion to know, alfo, that the principles maintained in this work, are precifely thofe upon which the French Weft Indian colonies are propofed to be administered, and that these volumes have been fubfcribed to by all the good colonists of that country, as their confeffion of faith. These confiderations have determined us to enter pretty fully into the speculations of M. V. D. C.; and we are the more inclined to bestow upon him an extraordinary fhare of attention, because the facts which he has fometimes afferted, feem to us very likely to miflead the unwary-both from the confident tone of the author, and from his undoubted opportunities of information-unless they are thoroughly fifted and expofed; and because he has collected into one point, a variety of scattered opinions, exceedingly erroneous, but very popular, upon the general fubject of negro flavery. It is not our intention, however, to give a complete analyfis of this work, or to refute even every part of it to which we may find it neceffary to allude. The doctrines which we moft of all feel difpofed to reject, are of an abfurdity so palpable and egregious, that we need but quote them as curiofities, in order to expofe them. After this part of our tafk is finifhed, therefore, it will remain to felect the moft material errors in point of fact, (we willingly give them that name) which the author has committed; and to produce fome very material evidence, which he has unwarily furnished, against a caufe lefs confiftently, but with greater moderation, fupported by others. We fhall conclude, by prefenting our readers with a few confiderations seldom attended to in the views which men ufually take of the future progrefs of the negro race, chiefly in the New World.

In the general tenor of its logic, this work refembles most of thofe lately permitted to fee the light in France. An abhorrence of the equality worshipped in the earlier part of the revolution, gradually leads to the abjuration of the liberty which used to be coupled with it. Hence, the transition is easy to an utter rejection of every thing approaching to a republic; for, what are all popular forms of government, but modes of democracy? Therefore, the people muft only think how they fhall bow and obey. We are thus brought to the neceffity of abfolute monarchies, from the very nature of things. But the only danger is, left they fhould be too mild. The people muft therefore be carefully deprived of every thing approaching to privilege or liberty,-all of which ought properly to centre in one hereditary monarch. Now, what is perfonal liberty, but a modification of civil rights, for which few are fitted, and still fewer have any need? And do not men every day fell their liberties, or hire their perfons, which is the fame thing? Moreover, are not fome men fo brutified, that perfonal rights would be thrown away upon them? How natural, then, is it, that fome fhould be mafters, and others flaves? And how useful, too, is this fubordination, which the vulgar call flavery? Not to mention other things, it is the fource of good government, peace, fugar and coffee, national profperity, fhips and fine colonies. Hence we are easily led to the conclufion, that every thing is quite as it ought to be, both in the mother country, and the leffer colonies of France; that the weeds of privilege and perfonal liberty are wifely eradicated from both parts of the empire; and that the complete regeneration of that happy fyftem only requires a continued fubmiffion to the Emperor in the Old world, and an increafed importation of African beafts of burden (commonly called men and women by other writers) in the New. It forms an occafional variety in this fcheme, fometimes to contraft the excellence of the Catholic religion with the horrors of revolutionary impiety; and at other times, to deny the authority of the Bible, and laugh at the precepts of all religions, when they interfere with the intereft of the planters. Whether we have overcharged this sketch of the general principles of reafoning adopted by our author, and taken by him. from the prefent fashion of Parifian writers, let the following particulars fhew; in which, it may be obferved, that he can frequently boast an entire originality, even among the productions of his own countrymen.

We pafs over his long invectives against equality and civil liberty-his appropriate praises of the new government-his bitter abuse of the freedom enjoyed in Great Britain (which confifts it feems of privileges partly hurtful and partly nonfenfical)-his ar

X 4

guments

guments to prove (what not long ago would have paffed for a contradiction in terms all over France) that democracy is, of all governments, the moft abfurd. Thefe difcuffions occupy much of thefe volumes. We fhall only notice two particulars as fpecimens of the rest. He commits the flight mistake of fuppofing juries to be annually elected; and inveighs against so horrid an inftitution with due energy. (II. 115.) He maintains that Englith liberty is abfolutely limited to these two privileges-robbing on the highway, and throwing ftones at the king. (II. 59.)'

It is of more importance to caft an eye upon his objections to perfonal liberty, and his continual praifes of domestic flavery, under whatever form it may appear; for, by thefe, he ultimately fupports his main pofitions upon the negro fyftem. According to him, different men are born with different faculties, and are thereby defined by nature for different ftations in fociety. Now, one ftition is that of flavery; therefore, certain men are born to be flaves: nor ought they to repine at this lot;-Terence, Phædrus, lop, and many other great men among the ancients, were flaves. The brave Gauls and Germans used to fell their liberties, or lofe them, at play; and among the lower animals, we find none who do not thrive in the comfortable ftate of fervitude. This laft topic of confolation is fo curiously imagined and illuftrated, that we fhall infert the paflage at length, as a fair fpecimen of the reft,

Obferve the largest, the strongeft, the most ferocious, the moft laborious and moft generous of animals: both birds and quadrupeds become habituated to flavery;-for example, the lion, the wolf, the bear, the fox, and even the tiger, who at leaft lives in his cage. In the Eaft, panthers, ounces, and leopards are employed in the chafe, as dogs are with us. The elephant may be tamed, and rendered a domeftic animal in a week. The very fishes themfelves learn to know the voice of a master, and to receive food from his hands. The gold-fith lives contentedly in his jar in our apartments. I know only of the humming bird which dies fpeedily in confinement: and why? because he can no longer hop from flower to flower, and fip the nectar he loves. However, a Dominican friar, I believe his name was Feuillée, at Martinique, fucceeded in keeping one three months, by means of the proper attention to its dict.' (11. 282.)

In short, the averfion to flavery is a mere prejudice; wholly devoid of all reafon; unfounded either in the analogy of nature, er the example of past ages; and utterly unknown even to the yulgar themfelves, until the falfe philofophy of modern times, at which it is now become fashionable to rail in Paris, filled men's heads with a multitude of dangerous chimeras.

Now, our author cbferves, that the order of nature thus clear

f

ly requiring a certain portion of mankind to live as flaves to the reft, it is only neceffary to inquire on what portion of the fpecies this lot fhould fall. The Europeans are evidently out of he queftion; they are the nobler animal. The Afiatics are too ar off, and might probably not come, when called, to take their Place; befides, they have fome good qualities. The Americans are not at all improper for the ftation; only that their numbers are small, their strength not very great, and they live in fituations exceedingly incommodious for the trader. Who then but the Africans can be the fervile caft? And, of the Africans, who but the Negroes inhabiting the Weft Coaft? Accordingly, a very large portion of this work is taken up with a detail of the bad qualities and defects of the Negroes; their neceflary unfitnefs for every thing but flavery; and the infinite mifery of their nature, until happily removed to the genial foil of the Weft Indies, where they both thrive admirably themselves, and are the ource of every benefit to their proprietors. 1

*

It

* It is fo rare to meet with a formal eulogy of slavery, that our readers might not think us ferious in the statements we have given of the author's love for that condition (a paffion which he shares with almost all the prefent race of French political writers), did we not give a specimen of his praises.

I know nothing which is fo well calculated to give fenfible men a just idea of flavery, as the filence of Epictetus on his own condition. Add to this, the filence of Terence and of Phædrus. How happens it, that these ancient authors, who were themselves flaves, have left us no invectives against flavery? And how comes it to pass, that our modern writers who were flaves, declaim fo violently against this condition? The ancients were acquainted with the nature of man; and the moderns only know the art of reformation.' (II. 255. Note.)

That our readers may have fome idea of the fatal tendency which the prefent dynasty in France has to check the progrefs of improvement, wherever liberty, or liberality of opinion, is at all concerned; and in order to demonstrate the truth of what we have obferved concerning the abominable nature of the principles now propagated moft fedulously by all the writers of the government, we fubjoin the following anecdote :—A work was lately published in Paris by a Citoyen Ferrier, of the Bayonne revenue department, entitled, Du Gouvernement confideré dans fes rapports avec le Commerce.' The profeffed object of this very fingular production, is to preach up the whole doctrines of the mercantile fyftem, and to bring back men's minds from the errors in which the modern political writers, particularly Smith, have too long bewildered them. There is literally not one fingle abfurdity in the whole extent of the mercantile theory which this work does not warmly efpoufe. In the Journal

[ocr errors]

des

It may at first fight appear a little extraordinary, how one, who boafts of his belief in the Mofaic account of Adam (II. 139.), fhould fo itoutly maintain that the negroes are beings defcended of a race diftinct from our own. If we rightly follow his reafoning, however, he would be understood to deny that the negro is a human being; at leaft, this feems the meaning of the whole catalogue given of his inferiorities, by far the greater part of which are corporeal. Thus, his ugliness is defcribed in terms fo extravagant, that one is tempted to accufe the whites of a very fingular tafte, as often as one thinks how many mulattoes there are in the West Indies. Their colour, and, above all, the woolly quality of their hair, is in like manner urged as evident proof of inferiority. Their perspiration is rancid; their taste obtufe; they fleep too foundly (in the country of the cart-whip, be it remembered); they have not even the appearance of courage; they are unsusceptible of love; yet (I. 219.) they make love fongs. They

des Debats,' (December 17. 1804), by far the ableft and most univer fally circulated of all the French gazettes, appears an article, written upon the whole with fome acuteness of expreffion at leaft, and full of culogium upon Ferrier's book, Dr Smith is styled, Ecrivain Anglois fans confideration dans fon pays, mais reconnu comme une autorité dans le notre, fans qu'il foit facile d'expliquer pourquoi.' Ferrier is afferted to have thoroughly refuted every pofition relative to the liberty of trade, &c. and to have fucceeded completely in restoring the empire of reafon and experience, uniformly at variance with Smith.' It is maintained, that France has made the fatal experiment of leaving things to them. felves in matters of trade, and that the refult leads to a rigorous adop tion of the fyftem of compulfion and interference. The difcoveries of modern political economists, are treated as fome of the worst fruits of the fpirit of innovation, which nearly ruined all Europe; and it is plain, ly afferted, that the politicians of the middle ages were wiser on these topics than ourfelves. On était moins ignare en economie politique, dans les fecles tenebreux; il eft vrai qu'alors on jugeoit de tout par l'experience, et qu'aujourdhui on tranche fur tout avec fon efprit. Thefe fymptoms of a retrograde movement in political opinions, are not indifferent; for al though, at prefent, the change is confined to a few, who are hired by the government, or frightened by their frivolous imaginations, to betray the cause of truth, the effect of their exertions will ere long be obvious upon the bulk of mankind-thofe who think by proxy. Even at this moment, the picture exhibited by fuch endeavours to check the fpeculative love of freedom, is fufficiently melancholy; and the fame confiderations render the case still more diftreffing, when we add the important circumftance, that the wretched views of policy thus reviving in France, fpring up in the centre of the government itself, and influence its conduct accordingly.

[ocr errors]
« 前へ次へ »