m; for we
waited daily for an answer from the president during the whole of his
presidency, but we never received any; and the committee in London, when
they had read my letter, desired me unequivocally to say, that they did not
see the propriety of the petition, which it had been recommended to them to
obtain.

At the next meeting it was resolved, that a letter should be written to the
new president for the same purpose as the former. This, it was said, was
now rendered essentially necessary. For the merchants, planters, and others
interested in the continuance of the Slave-trade, were so alarmed at the
enthusiasm of the French people, in favour of the new order of things, and
of any change recommended to them, which had the appearance of promoting
the cause of liberty, that they held daily committees to watch and to
thwart the motions of the Friends of the Negros. It was therefore thought
proper, that the appeal to the Assembly should be immediate on this
subject, before the feelings of the people should cool, or, before they,
who were thus interested, should poison their minds by calculations of loss
and gain. The silence of the former president was already attributed to the
intrigues of the planters' committee. No time therefore was to be lost. The
letter was accordingly written, but as no answer was ever returned to it,
they attributed this second omission to the same cause.

I do not really know whether interested persons ever did, as was suspected,
intercept the letters of the committee to the two presidents as now
surmised; or whether they ever dissuaded them from introducing so important
a question for discussion when the nation was in such a heated state; but
certain it is that we had many, and I believe barbarous, enemies to
encounter. At the very next meeting of the committee, Claviere produced
anonymous letters, which he had received, and in which it was stated that,
if the society of the Friends of the Negros did not dissolve itself, he and
the rest of them would be stabbed. It was said that no less than three
hundred persons had associated themselves for this purpose. I had received
similar letters myself; and on producing mine, and comparing the
hand-writing in both, it appeared that the same persons had written them.

In a few days after this the public prints were filled with the most
malicious representations of the views of the committee. One of them was,
that they were going to send twelve thousand