breaking up the bands of aimless pillagers
into which the insurrection had already dispersed. This took but a few
days. Buddoe was almost at once trapped by the baldest flatteries of
two leading Danish residents and, finding himself without even the
honor of armed capture, betrayed his confederates and disappeared.

Only one small band of blacks made any marked resistance. Under a
certain "Moses" they occupied a hill, hurling down stones upon their
assailants, but were soon captured. Many leaders of the revolt were
condemned and shot, displaying in most cases a total absence of
fortitude.

In less than a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was
restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for
the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once;
on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some
negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on
the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but
were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was
commended by his home government. The governor was censured and
superseded. The planters got no pay for their slaves.

The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be
paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor;
and that, after all, a general emancipation was only a moderate raising
of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at
times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs
offset each other. Make haste, rising generations! and, as you truly
honor your fathers, bring to their graves the garlandry of juster laws
and kinder, purer days.

To different minds this true story will speak, no doubt, a varying
counsel. Some will believe that the lovely island was saved from the
agonies of a Haytian revolution only through iron suppression. To
others it will appear that the old governor's rashly timorous edict
was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question
remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of
rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter,
surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery
without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort
for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest
or strongest effort for its continuance. Meanwhile, with