ugh some
persons who fancy that, like them the whole world have been asleep for
these twenty-five or thirty years, still dream of the submission of St.
Domingo, reasonably persons now acknowledge, that even were the final
success of such an enterprise possible, its real result would be, to have
expended, in order to conquer a desert, and ruins drenched in blood, ten
times more men and money than would be sufficient to colonise Africa. It is
well known, also, that the soil of Martinique is exhausted, and that its
productions will diminish more and more; that the small extent of
Guadaloupe confines its culture to a very narrow circle, and does not
permit it to offer a mass of produce sufficient to add much to the force of
the impulse, which a country like France, must give to all parts of its
agricultural and commercial industry. It is not to be doubted, but that
nature has given to French Guiyana the elements of great prosperity; but
this establishment requires to be entirely created; every thing has
hitherto concurred to prolong its infancy. There are not sufficient hands:
and how will you convey thither the requisite number of cultivators, when
you have proclaimed the abolition of the slave trade.

The Abolition of the Slave Trade: this is the principle, pregnant with
consequences, which should induce every enlightened government speedily to
change its whole colonial system. It would be in vain to attempt to prolong
this odious trade by smuggling, and thus still to draw from it some
precarious resources. This sad advantage would but keep open the wound
which has struck the western colonies, without being able to effect their
recovery, as is desired by those who seek to found their prosperity on the
regular farming out of one of the races of mankind. The slave trade is
abolished not only by religion, by treaties, by the consent of some powers,
by the calculations and interest of some others, which will not permit it
to be re-established; but it is abolished also by the light of the age, by
the wish of all civilised nations; by opinion, that sovereign of the world,
which triumphs over every obstacle, and subdues all that resist her laws.
Without the slave trade, you cannot transport to the West Indies those
throngs of men whose sweat and blood are the manure of your lands: on the
other hand, you see the Genius of Independence hover over the New World,
which will soon force you to seek friends and allies where you have
hit