reets of London, broken on the wheel, or torn to
pieces by infuriated mobs. Even within the last two years, the same
accusation had been brought forward in Russia and Germany, and had been
established apparently by adequate proof. So far as popular conviction
of the guilt of the Jews was an evidence against them, nothing could be
stronger; and no charge could be without foundation on ordinary
principles of evidence which revived so often and in so many places. And
yet many persons, I said, and myself among them, believed that although
the accusers were perfectly sincere, the guilt of the Jews was from end
to end an hallucination of hatred. I had looked into the particulars of
some of the trials. They were like the trials for witchcraft. The belief
had created the fact, and accusation was itself evidence. I was
prepared to find these stories of child murder in Hayti were bred
similarly of anti-negro prejudice.

Had the Chief Justice caught at my suggestion with any eagerness I
should have suspected it myself. His grave diffidence and continued
hesitation in offering an opinion confirmed me in my own. I told him
that I was going to Hayti to learn what I could on the spot. I could not
expect that I, on a flying visit, could see deeper into the truth than
Sir Spenser St. John had seen, but at least I should not take with me a
mind already made up, and I was not given to credulity. He took leave of
me with an expression of passionate anxiety that it might be found
possible to remove so black a stain from his unfortunate race.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] As I correct the proofs I learn, to my great sorrow, that Sir Graham
is dead. I have lost in him a lately made but valued friend; and the
colony has lost the ablest of its legislators.

[9] It was on this ground alone that slavery was permitted in the French
islands. Labat says:

C'est une loi tres-ancienne que les terres soumises aux rois de France
rendent libres tous ceux qui s'y peuvent retirer. C'est ce qui fit que
le roi Louis XIII, de glorieuse memoire, aussi pieux qu'il etoit sage,
eut toutes les peines du monde a consentir que les premiers habitants
des isles eussent des esclaves: et ne se rendit enfin qu'aux pressantes
sollicitations qu'on luy faisoit de leur octroyer cette permission que
parce qu'on lui remontra que c'etoit un moyen infaillible et l'unique
qu'il y eut pour inspirer le culte du vrai Dieu aux Africains, les
retirer de l'idolatrie, et les faire perseverer ju