not. But let it
beware of the consequences. We will no longer continue to be beheld in a
degraded light. Dispatches shall go directly to St. Domingo; and we will
soon follow them. We can produce as good soldiers on our estates, as those
in France. Our own arms shall make us independent and respectable. If we
are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that thousands
will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our former state." On
hearing this, I entreated the deputies to wait with patience. I observed to
them, that in a great revolution, like that of France, things, but more
particularly such as might be thought external, could not be discussed
either so soon or so rapidly as men full of enthusiasm would wish. France
would first take care of herself. She would then, I had no doubt, extend
her care to her Colonies. Was not this a reasonable conclusion, when they,
the deputies, had almost all the first men in the Assembly in their favour?
I entreated them therefore to wait patiently; as well as upon another
consideration, which was, that by an imprudent conduct they might not only
ruin their own cause in France, but bring indescribable misery upon their
native land.

By this time a large packet, for which I had sent from England, arrived. It
consisted of above a thousand of the plan and section of a slave-ship, with
an explanation in French. It contained also about five hundred coloured
engravings, made from two views, which Mr. Wadstrom had taken in Africa.
The first of these represented the town of Joal, and the King's military on
horseback returning to it, after having executed the great pillage, with
their slaves. The other represented the village of Bain; from whence
ruffians were forcing a poor woman and her children to sell them to a ship,
which was then lying in the Roads. Both these scenes Mr. Wadstrom had
witnessed. I had collected also by this time, one thousand of my Essays on
the Impolicy of the Slave-trade, which had been translated into the French
language. These I now wished to distribute, as preparatory to the motion of
Mirabeau, among the National Assembly. This distribution was afterwards
undertaken and effected by the Archbishop of Aix, the Bishop of Chartres,
the Marquis de la Fayette, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the Comte de
Mirabeau, Monsieur Necker, the Marquis de Condorcet, Messieurs Petion de
Villeneuve, Bergasse, Claviere and Brissot, and by the Marchioness de la
Fayette