262
HISTORY  OF  ST. DOMINGO.
enterprizing regarded the troubles in St. Domingo, as an inviting
opportunity of distinguishing themselves.   In fact, every descrip-
tion of people became interested in the recovery of the colony,
forgetting what had passed in regard to the abolition of slavery
in the same metropolis ; it became a popular cause, was introduced
into the assemblies, and the ladies became partizans, headed by
the favorite sister of the First Consul, the lady of General Le
Clerc.    The mania spread into England with the beauties of
the Consular court, and that nation, where the ministry and
people had blindly desired the abolition, at the expence of a
portion of their empire of commerce, and the ruin of a large
body of colonists, still more blindly joined in the popular wish
of returning to slavery, those who were  completely emanci-
pated.
Bonaparte viewed the growing spirit with silence, and, it may
be, not without some regard to the character the victorious Black
had obtained in the mother country.    A variety of circumstances
contributed to convince him of the necessity of some attention
(in the first instance) to the powerful requests which poured in
from every quarter; the instance, also, of a power bidding him
defiance in a country which had not, by any regular process,
become separated from that  government over which  he was
called to preside, was repugnant to his feelings in the rank in
which he was elevated.    Madame Le Clerc, partaking in the
ambition ascribed to her brother, urged the measure of reducing
the island, to procure for her husband and herself something
2                                                                         more