of civility, a melancholy occasion
had presented itself for giving much more substantial evidence of the
alacrity with which the American administration would embrace any
proper opportunity of manifesting its disposition to promote the
interests of France.

[Sidenote: Insurrection and massacre in the island of St. Domingo.]

Early and bitter fruits of that malignant philosophy, which,
disregarding the actual state of the world, and estimating at nothing
the miseries of a vast portion of the human race, can coolly and
deliberately pursue, through oceans of blood, abstract systems for the
attainment of some fancied untried good, were gathered in the French
West Indies. Instead of proceeding in the correction of any abuses
which might exist, by those slow and cautious steps which gradually
introduce reform without ruin, which may prepare and fit society for
that better state of things designed for it; and which, by not
attempting impossibilities, may enlarge the circle of happiness, the
revolutionists of France formed the mad and wicked project of
spreading their doctrines of equality among persons, between whom
distinctions and prejudices exist to be subdued only by the grave. The
rage excited by the pursuit of this visionary and baneful theory,
after many threatening symptoms, burst forth on the 23d day of August
1791, with a fury alike destructive and general. In one night, a
preconcerted insurrection of the blacks took place throughout the
colony of St. Domingo; and the white inhabitants of the country, while
sleeping in their beds, were involved in one indiscriminate massacre,
from which neither age nor sex could afford an exemption. Only a few
females, reserved for a fate more cruel than death, were intentionally
spared; and not many were fortunate enough to escape into the
fortified cities. The insurgents then assembled in vast numbers, and a
bloody war commenced between them and the whites inhabiting the towns.
The whole French part of the island was in imminent danger of being
totally lost to the mother country. The minister of his Most Christian
Majesty applied to the executive of the United States for a sum of
money which would enable him to preserve this valuable colony, to be
deducted out of the debt to his sovereign; and the request was granted
in a manner evincing the interest taken by the administration in
whatever might concern France.

On the part of Spain, a desire had been expressed to adjust the
s