WEST
INDIES.
of war, might have been given up to an exasperated soldiery. is to be lamented that the subsequent conduct of the French government of Grenada, towards its new subjects, was not quite so generous. By an ordinance of the Count de Durat, the new governor, they were enjoined, under the penalty of military execution and confiscation of property, from the payment, directly or indirectly, of all debts due by them to British subjects, residing in any part of the British dominions ; and by another ordinance, the prohibition was extended to such debts owing to the subjects of the united provinces of Holland, as were guaranteed by any of the subjects of Great Britain. The Count D’Edaing had inserted claues to the fame effect, in the form of capitulation, which he had tendered, to the garrison, and it was those prohibitions that induced the British inhabitants, with an honed indignation, to risque the consequence of an unconditional surrender, rather than submit to them. With the virtue and integrity that it is to be hoped Will for ever distinguish the British character, they considered no sacrifice so great as the violation of that confidence, which had been reposed in them by their friends and creditors in Europe. But the ordinances went still further. By the regulations which they contained, it was enacted that all the estates belonging to English absentees, should be put into the hands of certain persons to be nominated by the governor, called conservators; and the produce be paid into the public treasury. Thus was plunder sanctioned by authority ; and the absent proprietors were not the only victims. The shameful facility * IT
373 CHAP. II.