of slavery
_throughout the whole of the French Colonies._ Thus the government of
the mother country confirmed freedom to those, on whom it had been
bestowed by the commissioners. This decree, therefore, _put the
finishing stroke to the whole._ It completed the emancipation of _the
whole slave population of St. Domingo._

With regard to the conduct of those who were emancipated by
Santhonax in the North, I find nothing particular to communicate.
With respect to those emancipated in the South and West by Polverel,
we are enabled to give a pleasing account. Colonel Malenfant, who was
residing in the island at the time, has made us acquainted with their
general conduct and character. "After the public act of
emancipation," says he, (by Polverel,) "the _negroes remained quiet,
both in the South and in the West, and they continued to work on all
the plantations._ There were, indeed, estates which had neither
owners nor managers resident on them. Some of these had been put in
prison by Mount Brun; and others, fearing the same fate, had fled to
the quarter which had just been given up to the English. Yet on these
estates, though abandoned, _the negroes continued their labors,_
where there were any (even inferior) agents to guide them; and on
those estates where no white men were left to direct them, they
betook themselves to the planting of provisions; but on all the
plantations where the _whites resided,_ the _blacks continued to
labor as quietly as before."_

A little further on, in the same work, ridiculing the notion
entertained in France, that the negroes would not work without
compulsion, he takes occasion to allude to other negroes who had been
liberated by the same proclamation, but who were more immediately
under his own eye. "If," says he, "you will take care not to speak to
them of their return to slavery, but talk to them about their
liberty, you may, with this latter word, chain them down to labor.
How did Toussaint succeed? How did I succeed also, before his time,
in the plain of the Cul de Sac, and on the plantation Gouraud, more
than eight months after liberty had been granted (by Polverel) to the
slaves? Let those who knew me at the time, and even the blacks
themselves, be asked. They will all reply that _not a single negro_
on that plantation, consisting of more than 460 laborers, _refused to
work;_ and yet this plantation was thought to be under the worst
discipline, and the slaves the most idle in the pla