4
EMANCIPATION
value and improve the advantages of freedom ; and thus overlooking the propriety and necessity of a gradual method of liberating them. They were equally rash in the manner in which they caused their designs in favour of the slaves to be communicated to them. Inflammatory addresses respecting their rights arc said to have been dispersed among them, and various other means were adopted, in order to prevail on them to rise in their own defence. One of the first steps of this society was, to recommend OgÊe, a mulatto of St. Domingo, at that time at Paris, to return to the Island, with a view of making preparations for the execution of their intentions;—having previously procured him the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the army of one of the German electors. In the meantime, the mulattoes urged their claims, and demanded the full benefits and privileges of the whites. But the planters and the colonial assembly, fearing it would be dangerous, in the present state of their own affairs, to accede to this demand, endeavoured to evade it by promises of future benefits and privileges. Such was the state of things with regard to the planters, and the coloured population, when OgÊe arrived in the Island. The effects produced on the negroes by the