Correspondance inédite de La Fayette : lettres de prison, lettres d'exil (1793-1801)

330 CORRESPONDANCE DE LA FAYETTE

minding you, my good Sir, of some early and pointed assertions of mine, which you thought yourself, in charity, obliged to combat. It is a comfort at least that in one colony where gradual emancipation had for some years been attempted, and a spirit of lenity diffused around, the black revolution was not attented with the horrors that have sullied it elsewhere. It now remains for my countrymen to heal the wounds which might have been prevented, and to secure for all the colonists, white and black, the enjoyment of freedom and legal order.

Ï am sorry to find that, on the other side, your Parliament is too backward—far am I to accuse the nation for parliamentary doings, I know how to discriminate—but I can't help lamenting that Mr. Pitt who, in very other measure, is so regularly supported by both Houses, has been, in this business, so very infortunate as to be regularly opposed by many of his most intimate and trusty friends. I forbear, as you do, to search in the ways whereby Providence might remove the obstacle —one of them however I must with earnest desire and fond expectation point out.

I hope a peace is not far distant, wherein almost all the maritime powers are concerned. What better atonement can be devised for the calamities and the crimes of this war, than to insert a formal article which shall at once put a stop to the infamous trade, and promote as well as we can, the restoration of our negroes brethren to the rights of men? What christian government would oppose it? I am sure the French Commonwealth shall not. Ina convention that is to be universal, no selfish pride can interfere. Innovation, in this point at least, cannot, I