ers, fearing the same fate, had fled to the quarter which had just
been given up to the English. Yet upon these estates, though abandoned,
the Negroes _continued their labours_, where there were any, even
inferior, agents to guide them; and on those estates, where no white men
were left to direct them, they betook themselves to the planting of
provisions; but upon _all the plantations_ where the Whites resided, the
Blacks _continued to labour as quietly as before_." A little further on
in the work, ridiculing the notion entertained in France, that the
Negroes would not work without compulsion, he takes occasion to allude
to other Negroes, who had been liberated by the same proclamation, but
who were more immediately under his own eye and cognizance[7]. "If,"
says he, "you will take care not to speak to them of their return to
slavery, but talk to them about their liberty, you may with this latter
word chain them down to their labour. How did Toussaint succeed? How did
I succeed also before his time in the plain of the Cul de Sac, and on
the Plantation Gouraud, more than eight months after liberty had been
granted (by Polverel) to the slaves? Let those who knew me at that time,
and even the Blacks themselves, be asked. They will all reply, that _not
a single Negro_ upon that plantation, consisting of more than four
hundred and fifty labourers, _refused to work_; and yet this plantation
was thought to be under the worst discipline, and the slaves the most
idle, of any in the plain. I, myself, inspired the same activity into
three other plantations, of which I had the management."

The above account is far beyond any thing that could have been
expected. Indeed, it is most gratifying. We find that the liberated
Negroes, _both in the South and the West_, continued to work upon their
_old plantations_, and for their _old masters_; that there was also _a
spirit of industry_ among them, and that they gave no uneasiness to
their employers; for they are described as continuing to work _as
quietly as before_. Such was the conduct of the Negroes for the first
nine months after their liberation, or up to the middle of 1794. Let us
pursue the subject, and see how they conducted themselves after this
period.

During the year 1795 and part of 1796 I learn nothing about them,
neither good, nor bad, nor indifferent, though I have ransacked the
French historians for this purpose. Had there, however, been any thing
in the way of _outrage_