in. I, myself,
inspired the same activity into three other plantations, of which I
had the management."

The above account is far beyond any thing that could have been
reasonably expected; indeed, it is most gratifying. We find that the
liberated negroes, _both in the South and West,_ continued to work on
_their old plantations,_ and for _their old masters;_ so that there
was also a spirit of industry among them; for they are described as
continuing to work _as quietly as before._ Such was the conduct of
the negroes for the first nine months after their liberation, up to
the middle of 1794. Of the conduct of the negroes during the year
1795, and part of 1796, I find no account. Had there been any
outrages, they would have been mentioned. Let no one connect the
outrages, which assuredly took place in St. Domingo in 1791 and 1792,
_with the effects of the emancipation of the slaves._ The great
massacres and conflagrations which at that time made so frightful a
picture in the history of this unhappy island, occurred _in the days
of slavery,_ before the proclamation of Santhonax and Polverel, and
before the great conventional decree of the mother country was known.
They had been occasioned, too, _not originally by the slaves
themselves,_ but by quarrels between the _white_ and _colored_
planters, and between the _royalists_ and the _revolutionists,_ who,
for the purpose of wreaking their vengeance on each other, called in
the aid of their slaves; and as to the insurgent negroes of the
North, who filled that part of the colony in those years with terror
and dismay, they were originally put in motion, according to
Malenfant, _by the royalists themselves,_ to strengthen their own
cause, and to put down _the partisans of the French revolution._

When Jean Francois and Brasson commenced the insurrection, there
were many white royalists among them, and the negroes were made to
wear the white cockade.

I now come to the latter part of the year 1796, and we shall find
that there was no want of industry or of obedience in those who had
been emancipated. _"The colony,"_ says Malenfant, _"was flourishing
under Toussaint; the whites lived happily on their estates, and the
negroes continued to work for them."_ Now, Toussaint came into power,
being General-in-chief of the armies of St. Domingo, near the end of
the year 1796, and remained in power till the year 1802, or till the
invasion of the island by the French expedition by Bonap