STUNNED by the noise of the minute-guns from the Fort, by the cries of
the fugitives, and the distant crash of falling buildings, I did not
know in what direction to lead my men; but, meeting in the main square
the captain of the Yellow Dragoons, he advised me to proceed direct to
the Governor.
Other hands have painted the disasters of Cap, and I must pass quickly
over my recollections of them, written as they are in fire and blood. I
will content myself with saying that the insurgent slaves were already
masters of Dondon, of Terrier-Rouge, of the town of Ouanaminte, and of
the plantation of Limbé. This last news filled me with uneasiness, owing
to the proximity of Limbé to Acul. I made all speed to the Government
House. All was in confusion there. I asked for orders, and begged that
instant measures might be taken for the security of Acul, which I feared
the insurgents were already threatening. With the Governor, Monsieur de
Blanchelande, were M. de Rouvray, the Brigadier, and one of the largest
landholders in Cap; M. de Touzard, the Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Regiment of Cap; a great many members of the Colonial and the Provincial
Assemblies, and numbers of the leading colonists. As I entered, all were
engaged in a confused argument.
“Your Excellency,” said a member of the Provincial Assembly, “it is only
too true, it is the negroes, and not the free mulattoes; it has often
been pointed out that there was danger in that direction.”
“You make that statement without believing in its truth,” answered a
member of the Colonial Assembly, bitterly, “and you only say it to gain
credit at our expense. So far from expecting a rising of the slaves, you
got up a sham one in 1789. A ridiculous farce in which with a supposed
insurgent force of three thousand slaves, _one_ national volunteer only
was killed, and that most likely by his own comrades.”
“I repeat,” replied the _Provincial_, “that we can see farther than you.
It is only natural. We remain upon the spot and study the minutest
details of the colony, whilst you and your Assembly hurry off to France
to make some absurd proposals; which are often met with a national
reprimand _Ridiculus mus_.”
The member of the Colonial Assembly answered with a sneer—
“Our fellow citizens re-elected us all without hesitation.”
“It was your Assembly,” retorted the other, “that caused the execution
of that poor devil who neglected to wear a tricolored cockade in a
_café_, and who commenced a petition for capital punishment to be
inflicted on the mulatto Lacombe with that worn-out phrase, ‘In the name
of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’”
“It is false,” exclaimed the other; “there has always been a struggle of
principles against privileges between our assemblies.”
“Ha, Monsieur, I see now you are an _Independent_.”
“That is tantamount to allowing that you are in favour of the _White
Cockade_: I leave you to get out of that confession as best you may.”
More might have passed, but the Governor interposed.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, what has this to do with the present state of
affairs, and the pressing danger that threatens us? Listen to the
reports that I have received. The revolt began this night at ten o’clock
amongst the slaves in the Turpin Plantation. The negroes, headed by an
English slave named Bouckmann, were joined by the blacks from Clement,
Trémés, Flaville, and Nöe. They set fire to all the plantations, and
massacred the colonists with the most unheard-of barbarities. By one
single detail I can make you comprehend all the horrors accompanying
this insurrection. The standard of the insurgents is the body of a white
child on the point of a pike.”
A general cry of horror interrupted the Governor’s statement.
“So much,” continued he, “for what has passed outside the town. Within
its limits all is confusion. Fear has rendered many of the inhabitants
forgetful of the duties of humanity, and they have murdered their
slaves. Nearly every one have confined their negroes behind bolts and
bars. The white artisans accuse the free mulattoes of being
participators in the revolt, and many have had great difficulty in
escaping from the fury of the populace. I have had to grant them a place
of refuge in a church, guarded by a regiment of soldiers; and now, to
prove that they have nothing in common with the insurgents, they asked
that they may be armed and led against the rebels.”
“Do nothing of the kind, your Excellency,” cried a voice which I
recognized as that of the planter with whom I had had a duel. “Do
nothing of the kind; give no arms to the mulattoes.”
“What, do you not want to fight?” asked a planter, with a sneer.
The other did not appear to hear him, and continued: “These men of mixed
blood are our worst enemies, and we must take every precaution against
them. It is from that quarter that the insurgents are recruited; the
negroes have but little to do with the rising.” The poor wretch hoped by
his abuse of the mulattoes to prove that he had nothing in common with
them, and to clear himself from the imputation of having black blood in
his veins; but the attempt was too barefaced, and a murmur of disgust
rose up on all sides.
“Yes,” said M. de Rouvray, “the slaves _have_ something to do with it,
for they are forty to one; and we should be in a serious plight if we
could only oppose the negroes and the mulattoes with whites like you.”
The planter bit his lips.
“General,” said the Governor, “what answer shall be given to the
petition: shall the mulattoes have the arms?”
“Give them weapons, your Excellency; let us make use of every willing
hand. And you, sir,” he added, turning to the colonist of doubtful
colour. “Go arm yourself, and join your comrades.”
The humiliated planter slunk away, filled with concentrated rage.
But the cries of distress which rang through the town reached even to
the chamber in which the council was being held. M. de Blanchelande
hastily pencilled a few words upon a slip of paper, and handed it to one
of his aides-de-camp, who at once left the room.
“Gentlemen, the mulattoes will receive arms; but there are many more
questions to be settled.”
“The Provincial Assembly should at once be convoked,” said the planter
who had been speaking when first I entered.
“The Provincial Assembly?” retorted his antagonist; “what is the
Provincial Assembly?”
“You do not know because you are a member of the Colonial Assembly,”
replied the favourer of the _White Cockade_.
The _Independent_ interrupted him. “I know no more of the Colonial than
the Provincial—I only recognize the General Assembly.”
“Gentlemen,” exclaimed a planter, “whilst we are losing time with this
nonsense, tell me what is to become of my cotton and my cochineal?”
“And my indigo at Lumbé?”
“And my negroes, for whom I paid twenty dollars a-head all round?” said
the captain of a slave ship.
“Each minute that you waste,” continued another colonist, “costs me ten
quintals of sugar, which at seventeen piastres the quintal makes one
hundred and thirty livres, ten sous, in French money, by the——”
Here the rival upholders of the two Assemblies again sought to renew
their argument.
“Morbleu,” said M. de Rouvray in a voice of thunder, striking the table
violently, “what eternal talkers you are! What do we care about your two
assemblies. Summon both of them, your Excellency, and I will form them
into two regiments, and when they march against the negroes we shall see
whether their tongues or their muskets make the most noise.”
Then turning towards me he whispered—
“Between the two Assemblies and the Governor nothing can be done. These
fine talkers spoil all, as they do in Paris. If I was seated in his
Excellency’s chair, I would throw all these fellows out of the window,
and with my soldiers and a dozen crosses of St. Louis to promise, I
would sweep away all the rebels in the island. These fictitious ideas of
liberty, which they have all run mad after in France, do not do out
here. Negroes should be treated so as not to upset them entirely by
sudden liberation; all the terrible events of to-day are merely the
result of this utterly mistaken policy, and this rising of the slaves is
the natural result of the taking of the Bastille.”
Whilst the old soldier thus explained to me his views—a little
narrow-minded perhaps, but full of the frankness of conviction—the
stormy argument was at its height. A certain planter, one amongst the
few who were bitten with the rabid mania of the revolution, and who
called himself Citizen General C——, because he had assisted at a few
sanguinary executions, exclaimed—
“We must have punishments rather than battles. Every nation must exist
by terrible examples; let us terrify the negroes. It was I who quieted
the slaves during the risings of June and July by lining the approach to
my house with a double row of negro heads. Let each one join me in this,
and let us defend the entrances to Cap with the slaves who are still in
our hands.”
“How?” “What do you mean?” “Folly,” “The height of imprudence,” was
heard on all sides.
“You do not understand me, gentlemen. Let us make a ring of negro heads,
from Fort Picolet to Point Caracole. The rebels, their comrades, will
not then dare to approach us. I have five hundred slaves who have
remained faithful—I offer them at once.”
This abominable proposal was received with a cry of horror.
“It is infamous! It is too disgusting!” was repeated by at least a dozen
voices.
“Extreme steps of this sort have brought us to the verge of
destruction,” said a planter. “If the execution of the insurgents of
June and July had not been so hurried on, we should have held in our
hands the clue to the conspiracy, which the axe of the executioner
divided for ever.”
Citizen C—— was silenced for a moment by this outburst; then in an
injured tone he muttered—
“I did not think that _I_, above all others, should have been suspected
of cruelty. Why, all my life I have been mixed up with the lovers of the
negro race. I am in correspondence with Briscot and Pruneau de
Pomme-Gouge, in France; with Hans Sloane, in England; with Magaw, in
America; with Pezll, in Germany; with Olivarius, in Denmark; with
Wadstiörn, in Sweden; with Peter Paulus, in Holland; with Avendaño, in
Spain; and with the Abbé Pierre Tamburini, in Italy!”
His voice rose as he ran through the names of his correspondents amongst
the lovers of the African race, and he terminated his speech with the
contemptuous remark—
“But, after all, there are no true philosophers here.”
For the third time M. de Blanchelande asked if any one had anything
further to propose.
“Your Excellency,” cried one, “let us embark on board the _Leopard_,
which lies at anchor off the quay.”
“Let us put a price on the head of Bouckmann,” exclaimed another.
“Send a report of what has taken place to the Governor of Jamaica,”
suggested a third.
“A good idea, so that he may again send us the ironical help of five
hundred muskets!” sneered a member of the Provincial Assembly. “Your
Excellency, let us send the news to France, and wait for a reply.”
“Wait—a likely thing indeed,” exclaimed M. de Rouvray; “and do you
think that the blacks will wait, eh? And the flames that encircle our
town, do you think that they will wait? Your Excellency, let the tocsin
be sounded, and send dragoons and grenadiers in search of the main body
of the rebels. Form a camp in the eastern division of the island; plant
military posts at Trou and at Vallieres. I will take charge of the plain
of Dauphin; but let us lose no more time, for the moment for action has
arrived.”
The bold and energetic speech of the veteran soldier hushed all
differences of opinion. The general had acted wisely. That secret
knowledge which every one possesses most conducive to his own interests,
caused all to support the proposal of General de Rouvray; and whilst the
Governor with a warm clasp of the hand showed his old friend that his
counsels had been appreciated, though they had been given in rather a
dictatorial manner, the colonists urged for the immediate carrying out
of the proposals.
I seized the opportunity to obtain from M. de Blanchelande the
permission that I so ardently desired, and, leaving the room, mustered
my company in order to return to Acul—though, with the exception of
myself, all were worn out with the fatigue of their late march.