Rufisque, which are so well known, that we may dispense with speaking of
them here. We shall only mention as among the principal points to be
occupied, with the _mornes_ of Cape Rouge, Portudal, Joal, and Cahone, this
last on the river Salum near the Gambia; they are large villages, the
environs of which are covered with magnificent forests, and the soil of
which is perhaps the most fertile of any in Africa. For more ample accounts
of these countries, we refer to the excellent works of Messrs. Durand and
Geoffroy de Villeneuve, who have examined them like enlightened observers,
and perfectly well described them in their travels, only that they have too
much exaggerated the agricultural advantages of Cape Verd.
We shall not have the presumption to lay down plans, to propose systems, to
enforce such or such means for putting them in execution. We shall merely
terminate our task by some general considerations calculated to confirm
what numerous and able observers have already thought, of the importance of
the establishments in Africa, and of the necessity of adopting some general
plan of colonisation for these countries.
However pride, prejudice and personal interest, may deceive themselves
respecting the re-establishment of our Western Colonies, nobody will be
able longer to dissemble the inutility of attempts to persevere in a false
route. Calculation will at length triumph over blind obstinacy and false
reasonings. There is already a certain number of incontestable data, the
consequences of which must be one day admitted. And first, though some
persons who fancy that, like them the whole world have been asleep for
these twenty-five or thirty years, still dream of the submission of St.
Domingo, reasonably persons now acknowledge, that even were the final
success of such an enterprise possible, its real result would be, to have
expended, in order to conquer a desert, and ruins drenched in blood, ten
times more men and money than would be sufficient to colonise Africa. It is
well known, also, that the soil of Martinique is exhausted, and that its
productions will diminish more and more; that the small extent of
Guadaloupe confines its culture to a very narrow circle, and does not
permit it to offer a mass of produce sufficient to add much to the force of
the impulse, which a country like France, must give to all parts of its
agricultural and commercial industry. It is not to be doubted, but that
nature has given to French Guiyana the elements of great prosperity; but
this establishment requires to be entirely created; every thing has
hitherto concurred to prolong its infancy. There are not sufficient hands:
and how will you convey thither the requisite number of cultivators, when
you have proclaimed the abolition of the slave trade.
The Abolition of the Slave Trade: this is the principle, pregnant with
consequences, which should induce every enlightened government speedily to
change its whole colonial system. It would be in vain to attempt to prolong
this odious trade by smuggling, and thus still to draw from it some
precarious resources. This sad advantage would but keep open the wound
which has struck the western colonies, without being able to effect their
recovery, as is desired by those who seek to found their prosperity on the
regular farming out of one of the races of mankind. The slave trade is
abolished not only by religion, by treaties, by the consent of some powers,
by the calculations and interest of some others, which will not permit it
to be re-established; but it is abolished also by the light of the age, by
the wish of all civilised nations; by opinion, that sovereign of the world,
which triumphs over every obstacle, and subdues all that resist her laws.
Without the slave trade, you cannot transport to the West Indies those
throngs of men whose sweat and blood are the manure of your lands: on the
other hand, you see the Genius of Independence hover over the New World,
which will soon force you to seek friends and allies where you have
hitherto reckoned only slaves. Why then do you hesitate to prepare a new
order of things, to anticipate events, which time, whose march you cannot
arrest, brings every day nearer and nearer? Reason, your own interest, the
force of circumstances, the advantages of nature, the richness of the soil,
every thing tells you that it is to Africa, that you must carry culture and
civilization.
Without entering into the question, whether the Government should reserve
to itself, exclusively, the right of founding colonies on that continent,
or whether it ought to encourage colonial companies, and depend on the
efforts of private interest suitably directed, let us be permitted to offer
some views, on the prudent and temperate course which ought to be laid
down, to arrive at a satisfactory result, not only in respect to the
civilization of the blacks, but even relatively to the commercial
advantages which the colonist must naturally have in view.
Though the abolition of the slave trade has been proclaimed, yet the
present slaves must be led to liberty only in a progressive manner. The
whites who are possessed of negroes, should not be allowed to prolong their
possession and their dominion over them, beyond the space of ten years, and
without being permitted to resell them during that period. During these ten
years, the negroes should be prepared for their new condition as well by
instruction as by the successive amelioration of their situation; it would
be necessary gradually to relax the chain of slavery; and by affording them
means to lay up a part of the produce of their labour, inspire them with
the desire, and the necessity of possessing something of their own.
After these ten years, which may be called a Noviciate, it is to be
presumed, that if lands were granted to them upon advantageous conditions,
fixed before hand, if they were furnished in case of need, with the
agricultural instruments, the use of which they would have learned, they
would become excellent cultivators: it is needless to remark that the man
who cultivates the soil, and whose labour the soil rewards, by its produce,
becomes strongly attached to the land, which supplies both his wants and
his enjoyments, and is soon led by family affections to the love of social
order, and to the sentiments which constitute a good citizen.
The blacks have been too long encouraged to sell their fellow-creatures,
for us to depend upon their soon forgetting this deplorable traffic. But
doubtless we ought to begin by renouncing the perfidious means of inflaming
their cupidity and their passions. The articles which they are the most
desirous to obtain from us, ought to be the price of the produce of the
soil, and no longer the means of exchange, and the aliment of this dreadful
traffic in human flesh. It would, however, be proper that, as long as
slaves should continue to arrive from the interior, the whites might buy
them. This permission should be granted for a time, and in a certain extent
of country. Their slavery should also be limited to ten years, as we have
said above, and their moral and physical improvement, should be directed in
such a manner as to attach them to the soil by exciting in them the love of
property.
The laws and institutions which govern the mother country, would
incontrovertibly be applicable to the new establishments. It would
certainly be presumable, that on account of particular considerations of
moral and political order, it would be proper to allow local regulations,
in forming which, all proprietors enjoying the rights of citizenship, ought
to participate, without any distinction of colour. It would especially be
highly important, that the regulations for the government of the slaves,
should be founded on mildness and humanity, that prudent and enlightened
persons should superintend the execution of them, and have the necessary
authority to prevent abuses, and to secure to the slave the protection of
the law.
In order to obtain these results, it is evident that it would be no less
essential to preserve the colonies from the scourge of arbitrary authority,
from the excesses of power, which always accompany abuses, injustice, and
corruption. When favor and caprice are the only laws that are attended to;
when intrigue supplies the place of merit; when cupidity succeeds to
honorable industry; when vice and meanness are titles to distinctions, and
the true means of making a fortune; when honours are no longer synonimous
with honour; then society presents only disorder and anarchy, then people
renounce obscure virtue, and laborious acquisition to follow the easy ways
of corruption; then enlightened men, for whom public esteem is a sterile
recommendation, the true servants of the king, the faithful friends of
their country, are forced to disappear, to withdraw from employments, and
the interest of the public, as well as that of humanity, is miserably
sacrificed to the basest calculations, to the most guilty passions.
He who desires the end, desires the means of attaining it. The end at
present, should be to prepare every thing beforehand, and rather sooner
than later, in order to repair in Africa the past losses and disasters,
which irremediable events have caused in the Western Colonies, and to
substitute for their riches their prosperity, the progressive decline of
which is henceforward inevitable, new elements of wealth and prosperity:
the means will be to carry into these countries, so long desolated by our
relentless avarice, knowledge, cultivation, and industry. By these means we
shall see in that vast continent numerous colonies arise, which will
restore to the mother country all the splendour, all the advantages of her
ancient commerce, and repay her with interest for the sacrifices she may
have made in the new world. But to effect this, let there be no more secret
enterprises; no more connivance at fraudulent traffic, no more unhappy
negroes snatched away from their families; no more tears shed on that sad
African soil, so long the witness of so many afflictions; no more human
victims, dragged to the altars of the shameful, and insatiable divinities,
which have already devoured such numbers: consequently, let there be no
more grounds for hearing in the English Parliament, voices boldly
impeaching our good faith, attacking the national honour, and positively
asserting that France maintains in her African possessions, the system of
the slave trade in the same manner as she did before she consented to its
abolition.
Africa offers to our speculators, to the enterprises of our industry, a
virgin soil, and an inexhaustible population peculiarly fitted to render it
productive. It must be our business to form them according to our views, by
associating them in these by a common interest. In conquering them by
benefits, instead of subjugating them by crimes, or degrading them by
corruption, let us lead them to social order and to happiness, by our moral
superiority, instead of dragging them under scourges and chains to misery
and death, we shall then have accomplished a useful and a glorious
enterprise; we shall have raised our commercial prosperity on the greatest
interest of those who have been the voluntary instruments of it, and above
all, we shall have expiated, by an immense benefit, this immense crime of
the outrages, with which we so long afflicted humanity.
_INTRODUCTION_
[Transcriber's Note: These notes are put in the text with the
numbering Axx or Bxx]
The following Notes were communicated to the Authors, when the second
edition was already so far advanced, as to render it impracticable to
incorporate them with the body of the work, and they are therefore placed
at the end. Some of them are extracted from the Journal of Mr. Bredif, who
belonged to the expedition, and were communicated by his uncle, Mr. Landry;
the others are by an officer of merit, whose modesty prevents the
publication of his name.
The Translator has thought it would be more convenient to place these notes
in one series, referring to the pages to which they belong. Those of Mr.
Bredif, are signed (B) the others (A).
NOTES.
[A1] I.--_On the Route to Africa_.
In going from Europe to the western coasts of Africa, situated to the north
of the line, it is better still, to pass between the Azores and Madeira,
and not to come within sight of the coast, till you have nearly reached the
latitude of the point where you desire to land. Nothing but the necessity
of procuring refreshments can authorise vessels, bound to the Cape of Good
Hope, or to the south of America, to touch at the Canaries, or at the Cape
Verd Islands. Notwithstanding the depth of the channels between the first
of these islands, these seas, which are subject both to calms and
hurricanes are not without danger. By keeping at a distance, there is also
the advantage of avoiding the current of Gibraltar, and of not running the
risk of meeting with the north west winds, which generally prevail along
the desert, (and hitherto insufficiently known.) Coasts of Zaara, along
which the Medusa sailed to no purpose, and which winds also tend to impel
vessels upon the dangerous bank of Arguin. (A)
[A2] II.--_On the Manoeuvres before Funchal_.
The usual indecision, which the commander of the frigate displayed in all
his resolutions, joined to a little accident, made him change the intention
which he had expressed of presenting himself before Funchal. From a
singularity which nothing justified, he appeared to have more confidence in
one of the passengers, who had indeed, frequented these seas, than in any
of his officers, in respect to the management of the vessel. As they
approached Madeira, the vessel was worked almost entirely according to the
advice of this passenger; but suddenly the breeze, which is always strong
in the neighbourhood of these mountainous countries, fell when they got too
near it, the sails flagged, the current seemed rapid; but after some
hesitation in the manoeuvring of the vessel, which the officers soon put
into proper order, they recovered the wind, and it was resolved to steer
for Teneriffe. (A)
[A3] III.--_On the Islands of Madeira and Teneriffe_.
Madeira and Teneriffe seen on the side where their capital cities lie, have
a very different appearance. The first is smiling with cultivation from its
shores, almost to the summit of the mountains. Every where the eye
discovers only little habitations surrounded by vineyards and orchards of
the most delightful verdure: these modest dwellings surrounded by all the
luxuriance of vegetation, placed under an azure sky, which is seldom
obscured by clouds, seem to be the abode of happiness, and the navigator,
long wearied by the monotonous prospect of the sea, cheerfully hailed this
delightful prospect. Teneriffe, on the contrary, shews itself with every
mark of the cause by which it was formed. The whole south east side is
composed of black sterile rocks, which are piled together in an
extraordinary confusion; even to the environs of the town of Saint Croix,
scarcely any thing is seen, on the greater part of these dry and burnt
lands, but low plants, the higher of which are probably Euphorbia, or
thorny Cereus; and those which cover the ground, the hairy lichen,
_Crocella tinctoria_, which is employed in dying, and which this island
furnishes in abundance. Seen from the sea, the town, which is in the form
of an amphitheatre, appears to be situated in the recess, formed by two
distinct branches of mountains, of which the one towards the south, forms
the Peak properly so called; it is particularly remarkable at a distance
for its slender towers, and for the steeples of its churches, the
construction of which, calls to mind the arabic architecture. (A)
[A4] IV.--_On the Mouth of the River St. John_.
There is probably an error in this account: the river St. John, is much
more to the south, and on the north side of Cape Meric. The inlet, which
was perceived during the ceremony of the tropic, which was a little tardy,
is the gulf of St. Cyprian, into which the currents appear to set. Early in
the morning, and to the north of this gulph, they passed a little island,
very near the coast, and the black colour of which, owing doubtless to the
marine plants that cover it, made a striking contrast with the whiteness of
the sandy downs of the great desert, the abode of the Moors, and of wild
beasts.--_Tellus leonum arida nutrix_. (A)
[A5] V.--_On the reconnaissance of Cape Blanco_.
Mr. de Chaumareys gave notice in the course of this day, that he had a mind
to anchor at a cable's length from Cape Blanco. He talked of it till the
evening, but on going to bed he thought no more about it; however, he
continually repeated that the minister had ordered him to make that Cape;
and therefore, when somebody said the next morning, that this Cape was
supposed to have been seen at eight o'clock the preceding evening, it was
from that time forbidden to doubt of it; and either from deference or
persuasion it was agreed, but not without laughing, that the Cape had been
seen at the hour mentioned. It was from the course of the vessel at this
moment that the route was calculated till an observation was made at noon.
(A)
[A6] VI.--_On the Refusal to answer the Signals of the Echo_.
It would probably have been of no use to inform Mr. de Chaumarey's of the
signals of the Echo. The commander of the Medusa, the chief of the
division, had declared already in the roads of the island of Aix, his
intention to abandon his vessels, and to proceed alone in all haste to the
Senegal. Though he spoke of strictly following the pretended instructions
of the minister respecting the route to be followed, it was, however,
violating the principle one, since it is useless to form a division if it
is not to go together. The corvette, commanded by Mr. Venancourt succeeded,
it is true, several times in joining the commander; but soon, by the
superior sailing of the Medusa, they lost sight of him again, and every
time they rejoiced at it. This resolution, not to sail in company, was the
chief cause of the loss of the principal vessel. The Echo having
determined, as was proper, to follow its commander, alone passed to the
north west of the bank. The two other vessels which had remained long
behind and were much more at liberty, passed more than thirty leagues to
the west of it, and thus proved that it was the safest and shortest rout.
(A)
[A7] VII.--_On the Stranding of the Medusa_.
From ten o'clock in the morning the colour of the water visibly changed,
and the head pilot, calculating after his _sea-torch_ before mentioned,
declared, at half past eleven, that they were at the edge of the bank, and
this was probable. From that moment the sailors were entirely employed in
drawing up the lines thrown out alongside of the vessel, and the
astonishing quantity of fish, all of the cod species, which were drawn on
board, added to the weeds that floated on every side, were more than
sufficient to make it believed that they were sailing upon a shoal. We
shall speak below of the species of this fish; but as for the weeds, which
were perceived on every side, besides that they gave reason to suppose that
we were approaching the land, their appearance in this gulph, also gives
ground to presume, that the currents of these seas, at this season, set
north, since the plants, with exception of some _Zosterés_, were nothing
but long stalks of grasses; most of them still furnished with their roots,
and many even with their ears, belonging to the tall grasses of the banks
of the Senegal, and the Gambia, which these rivers bring away at the time
of the inundations. All those which could be observed were _Panios_ or
millets. (A)
[B1] VIII.--_Moment of the Stranding of the Frigate_.
The officers wanted to tack about, as the water became shallower every
moment: but Mr. Richefort,(who enjoyed the confidence of Mr. de
Chaumarey's,) declaring that there was no reason to be alarmed, the captain
ordered more sail to be spread. Soon we had only fifteen fathoms, then
nine, then six. By promptitude the danger might still have been avoided.
They hesitated: two minutes afterwards a shock informed us that we had
struck; the officers, at first astonished, gave their orders with a voice
that shewed their agitation: the captain was wholly deprived of his; terror
was painted on the countenances of all those who were capable of
appreciating the danger: I thought it imminent, and expected to see the
frigate bilge. I confess that I was not satisfied with myself, at this
first moment, I could not help trembling, but afterwards, my courage did
not any more forsake me. (B)
[B2] IX.--_Confusion on Board the Frigate_.
The frigate having stranded, the same thing happened, which usually does
happen in critical circumstances, no decisive measures were taken: to
increase our misfortunes the obedience of the crew to the officers was
diminished for want of confidence. There was no concert. A great deal of
time was spent, and the second day was lost without having done any thing.
On the third, preparations were made to quit the frigate, and the efforts
made the day before to get her afloat, were renewed, but only half measures
were taken. The other preparations to insure our safety were not carried on
with any activity. Every thing went wrong. A list of the people was made,
and they were distributed between the boats and the raft, in order that
they might hold themselves ready to embark when it should be time. I was
set down for the long boat. Our mode of living, during all this time, was
extremely singular. We all worked either at the pump or at the capstern.
There was no fixed time for meals, we eat just as we could snatch an
opportunity. The greatest confusion prevailed, the sailors already
attempted to plunder the trunks. (B)
[B3] X.--_The Frigate lost_.
On the fourth the weather being fine, and the wind favourable to the motion
which we wished to give to the vessel, we succeeded in it. The most ardent
hope was excited among all the crew, we even supped very cheerfully; we
flattered ourselves that we should free the vessel and sail the next day. A
beautiful evening encouraged our hopes, we slept upon deck by moonlight;
but at midnight the sky was overclouded, the wind rose, the sea swelled,
the frigate began to be shaken. These shocks were much more dangerous than
those in the night of the third. At three o'clock in the morning the
master-caulker came to tell the captain that the vessel had sprung a leak
and was filling; we immediately flew to the pumps, but in vain, the hull
was split, all endeavours to save the frigate were given up, and nothing
thought of but how to save the people. (B)
[B4] XI.--_Embarkment of the Crew_.
On the 5th, about seven o'clock in the morning, all the soldiers were first
embarked on board the raft, which was not quite finished, these unfortunate
men crowded together upon pieces of wood, were in water up to the middle.
Mrs. and Miss Schmalz went on board their boat. Mr. Schmalz,
notwithstanding the entreaties of every body, would not yet quit the
vessel.
The people embarked in disorder, every body was in a hurry, I advised them
to wait patiently till every one's turn came. I gave the example, and was
near being the victim of it. All the boats, carried away by the current,
withdrew and dragged the raft with them: there still remained sixty of us
on board. Some sailors, thinking that the others were going to abandon
them, loaded their muskets, and were going to fire upon the boats, and
particularly upon the boat of the captain, who had already gone on board.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I dissuaded them from it. I had
need of all my strength, and all the arguments I could think of. I
succeeded in seizing some loaded muskets and threw them into the sea.
When I was preparing to quit the frigate, I had contented myself with a
small parcel of things which were indispensable; all the rest had been
already pillaged. I had divided, with a comrade, eight hundred livres in
gold, which I had still in my possession; this proved very fortunate for me
in the sequel. This comrade had embarked on board one of the boats, (B)
[A8] XII.--_On Mr. Espiau_.