w only
a few scattered plantations."[202]

Thus the lands were divided out among the officers of the army, while
the privates were compelled to cultivate the soil under their former
military commanders, clothed with more than "a little brief authority."
No better could have been expected except by fools or fanatics. The
blacks might preach equality, it is true, but yet, like the more
enlightened ruffians of Paris, they would of course take good care not
to practice what they had preached. Hence, by all the horrors of their
bloody resolution, they only effected a change of masters. The white man
had disappeared, and the black man, one of their own race and color, had
assumed his place and his authority. And of all masters, it is well
known, the naturally servile are the most cruel. "The earth," says
Solomon, "cannot bear a servant when he reigneth."[203]

"The sensual and the dark rebel in vain:
Slaves by their own compulsion, in mad game
They burst their manacles, to wear the _name_
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain."

COLERIDGE.

Thus "the world of good" they sought was found, most literally, in "the
word;" for the word, the name of freedom, was all they had achieved--at
least of good. Poverty, want, disease, and crime, were the substantial
fruits of their boasted freedom.

In 1789, the sugar exported was 672,000,000 pounds; in 1806, it was
47,516,531 pounds; in 1825, it was 2020 pounds; in 1832, it was 0
pounds. If history had not spoken, we might have safely inferred, from
this astounding decline of industry, that the morals of the people had
suffered a fearful deterioration. But we are not left to inference. We
are informed, by the best authorities,[204] that their "morals are
exceedingly bad;" and that under the reign of liberty, as it is called,
their condition has, in all respects, become far worse than it was
before. "There appears every reason to apprehend," says James Franklin,
"that it will recede into irrecoverable insignificance, poverty, and
disorder."[205]

Mr. T. Babington Macaulay has, we are aware, put forth certain notions
on the subject of liberty, which are exactly in accordance with the
views and the spirit of the abolitionists, as well as with the
cut-throat philosophy of the Parisian philanthropists of the revolution.
As these notions are found in one of his juvenile productions, and
illustrated by "a pretty story" out of Ariosto, w