nds of sugar for each day.

A slave who is condemned to death shall be valued before execution, and
the estimated price paid to the master, provided the latter has not made
a pretended complaint.

Masters may chain and whip their slaves, but not mutilate, torture, or
kill them.

If a master or overseer shall kill a slave, he shall be prosecuted; but
if he can convince the court of cause, he may be discharged without
pardon from the King.

Masters who are twenty years old can free their slaves at will or by
testamentary act, without being held to give a reason for it; and if
a slave is named by testament a general legatee, or an executor, or
guardian of children, he shall be considered enfranchised.

An enfranchised slave shall be regarded as free as any person born in
France, without letters of naturalization; he can enjoy the advantages
of natives everywhere, even if he was born in a foreign country.

An enfranchised slave must pay singular respect to his ancient master,
his widow, and children; an injury done to them will be punished more
severely than if done to others. But he is free, and quit of all
service, charge, and tenure that may be pretended by his former master,
either respecting his person or property and succession.

An enfranchised slave shall enjoy the same rights, privileges, and
immunities as if he had been born free. The King desires that he may
merit his acquired liberty, and that it may confer upon him, as well in
his person as estate, the same effects which the blessing of natural
liberty confers upon French subjects.

* * * * *

The last article, and all that related to enfranchisement, are notable
for their political effect upon the colony. The free mulattoes
interpreted the liberal clauses of the Code into an extension of the
rights of citizenship to them, as the natural inference from their
freed condition. The lust of masters and the defencelessness of the
slave-woman sowed thickly another retribution in the fated soil.

The custom of enfranchising children of mixed blood, and sometimes their
mothers, commenced in the earliest times of the French colonies, when
the labor of _engages_ was more valuable than that of slaves, and the
latter were objects of buccaneering license as much as of profit. The
colonist could not bear to see his offspring inventoried as chattels. In
this matter the nations of the South of Europe appear to atone for
acts of passio