hat the paper "contained nothing but a farrago of the French
metaphysics of liberty and equality;" and that "it was likely to produce
some of the dreadful scenes of St. Domingo." The next day Rutledge again
warned the House against even discussing the matter, as "very serious,
nay, dreadful effects, must be the inevitable consequence." He held up
the most lurid pictures of the fatuity of the French Convention in
listening to the overtures of the "three emissaries from St. Domingo,"
and thus yielding "one of the finest islands in the world" to "scenes
which had never been practised since the destruction of Carthage." "But,
sir," he continued, "we have lived to see these dreadful scenes. These
horrid effects have succeeded what was conceived once to be trifling.
Most important consequences may be the result, although gentlemen little
apprehend it. But we know the situation of things there, although they
do not, and knowing we deprecate it. There have been emissaries amongst
us in the Southern States; they have begun their war upon us; an actual
organization has commenced; we have had them meeting in their club
rooms, and debating on that subject.... Sir, I do believe that persons
have been sent from France to feel the pulse of this country, to know
whether these [i.e., the Negroes] are the proper engines to make use of:
these people have been talked to; they have been tampered with, and this
is going on."

Finally, after censuring certain parts of this Negro petition, Congress
committed the part on the slave-trade to the committee already
appointed. Meantime, the Senate sent down a bill to amend the Act of
1794, and the House took this bill under consideration.[40] Prolonged
debate ensued. Brown of Rhode Island again made a most elaborate plea
for throwing open the foreign slave-trade. Negroes, he said, bettered
their condition by being enslaved, and thus it was morally wrong and
commercially indefensible to impose "a heavy fine and imprisonment ...
for carrying on a trade so advantageous;" or, if the trade must be
stopped, then equalize the matter and abolish slavery too. Nichols of
Virginia thought that surely the gentlemen would not advise the
importation of more Negroes; for while it "was a fact, to be sure," that
they would thus improve their condition, "would it be policy so to do?"
Bayard of Delaware said that "a more dishonorable item of revenue" than
that derived from the slave-trade "could not be established." Ru