Star.
London, England, 1824-10-05 00:00:00

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• • •
Mr. Stephen commences a train of reasoniag oView
" that a counter-revolution in the stare of the enfran-
chised Negroes, is the main object of France in ‘ber
West India expedition." In support of this opinion, he
states " The great and urgent motive by which the.
Councils of the Republic may be presumed to be'
prompted in regard to the West Indies, is an impatient
wish to restore the agricultural and commercial value
of her Colonies."

“ The monopoly of the European sugar markets, by
her great rival, is a disadvantage not patiently to be
borne. The restoration of her marine too, in point of
comparative importance, cannot be hoped for, while a
nursery so great as West India navigation is nearly -lost
to her, and possessed. almost exclusively by Great Bri-
tain. Nor does her revenue less than her maritime

interests demand the recovery of her Colonial resources,
iu all their former magnitude.
" But in the Sugar Colonies of France, especially in
that whose former importance eclipsed all the rest
maited, and the extent of which has been vastly increased
by the cession of Spanish St. Domingo, Negro liberty
seems to be an insuperable obstacle to all these great and
necessary views."
Now follows the passage cited by the Reviewer:*
" While the negroes were in bondage, Mat Colony was
rich andionrishing, by the effects of their labour ; since
their enfranchisement, it has become comparatively almost
a neglected waste. All the solicitations of the (ilfwers of
the Republic, all the influence and authority of their own
favourite Chief, havejailed to recal them to any tolerable
degree of regsdar industry. What then remains, but
either to restore the rigid yoke pfthe private master and
renew the coercion of Me ant-whip, or permanently to
leave this, fine Island in its present unprofitable state.
" Thus it appears at first sight, not unnatural for the
Chief Consul to reason."

Now, I would inquire, why was it to be presumed
that " an impatient wish to restore the agricultural and
commercial value of her Colonies, bad such a great
:Ind urgent' inflnence on the 'Councils of the Republic,'
if it was not that the agricultural and commercial value
of those Colonies had been deteriorated by the substitu-
don of a state of freedom, that is of free labour,
for slavery and slave labour ?
Why was it natural for the French Republic to fear
that her great rival, England, would enjoy a monopoly
of the European market for her sugar I Whence the
fear of monopoly, if the production of sugar were as
easily accomplished by free labour, as by slave labour ?
But what is meant by Negro liberty appearing 4to be
an insuperable obstacle to all these great and necessary
views?' If this is the supposed language of Napoleon
only—if Mr. Stephen dissents from the opinions which
have been attributed to him; that is, if he agrees with
the Abolitionists in thinking free labour more profitable
than slave labour, how happens it that Mr. Stephen, in
the comprehensive view which he has taken of the de-
signs of the Chief Consul, has never once contemplated
the possibility of restoring the agricultural and com-
mercial value of the Colonies, by means of a few laws
of internal regulation, whereby the system of flee l'abour
might have been brought into operation? Never once
does he express his dissent from the view supposed to be
taken by Napoleon, of the obstacle afforded by Negro
liberty; but, on the contrary, whoever will turn to the
thirty-first page of Mr. Stephen's wo: k will there find,
that when adverting to the Chief Consul's enterprise'of
reinstating the Planters in their estates, Mr. Stephen
makesuse of these words : " But how can this work be
accomplished, consistently with the freedom of the
Negroes? To give back the land, without the means of
its cultivation, would be a mockery rather than a benefit."
I am aware that there were several circumstances
which would have rendered a return to slave: y imprac-
ticable in St. Domingo; but I will put it to the common
sense of any individual who may chance to peruse this
letter, whether the language of Mr. Stephen is that
which a man would use who thought free labour could
be employed more profitably to the proprietor than
slave labour ? And here I should be prepared to leave
the question, satisfied as to the result which would be
produced on the minds of all impartial judges, were
there not such a redundancy of proof in support of the
correctness and integrity of the Reviewer, that it would
be injustice to him not to instance a few more passages
from Mr. Steihen's work.
In page 15 of the same work -as that from which I
have quoted, Mr. Stephen says, " all the accounts,
such as we have, which profess to give information of
the new system, are thus far unanimous : they gene.
rally also represent the negroes of St. Domingo as living
,for the most part in great indolence; and agriculture,
except so far as respects the easy culture of coffee and
provisions, as being in a very languishing state; a de-
scription which pretty clearly imports the absence of
the driver and of the authority of the private owners.
Nor do such accounts admit of stronger confirmation
than that which arises from the state of the exports of that
once flourishing Colony, which, though said of late to have
been greatly increased, have, since the revolution, been in-
significantly small, when compared to their former ex-
tent. From the regulations respecting field labour,
published by Toussaint, in October, 1800, the same in-
ferences, as to the new condition of the negroes, may
undeniably be drawn; since, for the purpose a en-
forcing industry, the fear of military punishment is, in
. every case, made the substitute for the former coercion."'
In page 48, of the " Crisis," it is stated, " Among
the various powerful feelings that will combine to in-
spire a large community of negroes, inured by a ten
years' experience to the habits of freedom, with an
aveksion perfectly irreconcileable to their former state,
there is one which claims particular attention : it is one
which will, probably, occasion much obstinacy in the
attempt to refit their fetters, while it creates at least an
equal pertinacity of resistance. I mean that antipathy
to their former agricultural labours which has already
been so visible in the negroes of St. Domingo."
In page 12S of the "Crisis," Mr. Stephen says, " For,
without now entering on a subject too wide for inciden-
tal discussion in a work like the presto', /oust affirm
a truth, of which, though disputed by the Abolitionists,l
the owners of West India estates in general are but toe
conscious, that the present large profits of a suceeuful
sugar plantation could not be obtained, if the condition of
the slaves were to be qfectwally improved."
In page 191 of the "Crisis of the Sugar Colonies," Mr.
Stephen expresses himself to the same effect, and with still
more certainty: " The difficulty that in my estimate has
the greatest weight, is one which the West India party
would probably not choose to bring forward. It arises
from a feet, of which, from familiar acquaintance with
some of our old Colonies, I havea clear conviction that such
cheapness of' labour is by no weans to be expected from
the voluntary industry, however great, of Aegroes in
a state of freedons, as now excites the enterprise, and
splendidly rewards the success of the Planter, sa places
where Slavery is established. I admit, therefore, that