Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

sand pounds into their pocket, (the moderate profits of a slaving trip,) while with the other they subscribe their fifty or their hundred guineas for an Infirmary or a Bedlam. In this manner they compound with public opinion; and public opinion, when dazzled by the splendour of wealth, is easily deceived. It thus happens, that these calculating philosophers, who by a chemicocommercial process, convert the blood and bones of the Africans into silver and gold, are very well looked upon in society. They do not with their own hands distribute alcohol and gun-powder for fomenting the petty wars of the Africans. They do not stand by at the mock trials for witchcraft. They do not hold up a purse in the face of the predetermined judge. They are not the actual bidders at these judicial vendues. They do not tear the son from the parent: No; their agents seize upon both, for the imputed crime of either. They never have tossed the corded captives into the bilge-water of the long-boat. They do not bolt the fetters that couple the sable companions

of despair. They do not brandish the scourge, nor do they pickle the lacerated body of the obdurately resolved suicide. No, no,-they only hear of such things; they only furnish the means of carrying on the business; they only pocket the profits, when the business is done.

LET the retracting House of Commons of the year 1791, think of these things:

"And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming every man liberty to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name."

"But ye turned, and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids."

"Therefore thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every

one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine."

"Behold, therefore, I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made."

"Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with thee ?"

"The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully."

"Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity."

NOTE 18 a. p. 49. 1. 614.

The tyrant's arm.

THE character of Bonaparte will furnish a specimen of more monstrous moral deformity than was ever exhibited in the historical museum.

Possessing the power of conferring on mankind a greater portion of happiness than ever depended on the will of one man, he has been the author of miseries incalculable. He could have given liberty to France: he assumed absolute power to himself. He could have given peace to Europe : he concluded an insidious truce. He could have emancipated Switzerland: he rivetted the chains which the Directory had forged. In St. Domingo, his conduct was a complication of the most sottish impolicy, the most savage cruelty, the most knavish perfidy, that ever disgraced the annals of human nature. By this self-created monarch, was Toussaint, the elected ruler of a free people, swindled into a treaty, kidnapped during the peace that succeeded, torn from his wife and children, transported in irons to France, immured in a dungeon, and, finally, assassinated, (if uncontradicted accusation deserve any credit,) in a mode perfectly suitable to the commencement and progress of the horrid history,-poison under the disguise of medicine. Yet this masked murderer,

this druggist-assassin presumes to exclaim against the uplifted arm of an Arena or a Georges. His effrontery can only be surpassed by his hypocrisy. Compared to him, Cromwell was a mere novice in the art.-As to military talents, how infinitely inferior is he to Moreau ! Moreau saved, he sacrificed his soldiers. Moreau, destitute of resources, accomplished a retreat more splendid than the Corsican swindler's most celebrated victories. Moreau conducted his soldiers. to their homes: the Corsican deserted his in a distant, hostile, pestilential region. His success in Italy (and there only he was successful) was a matter of arithmetical, rather than of military tactics. In the cause of liberty, each individual of the French army was self-devoted to death. The Corsican's troops were in his estimation, and were in reality, as so much ammunition. Not a barrel of powder, not a caisson, was more entirely at his disposal, than were the lives of his men. He had only to calculate whether he or his adversary was most abundantly supplied with this

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »