8
mised to their valour; they may be inspired with con-
temptuous notions of the blacks whom they are going to
subdue ; and it may not be till successive armies, the flower
of the French chivalry, are swallowed up and lost without
advantage, in this insatiable gulf, that the government may
be mortified by murmurs and mutiny. " Heaven shield
us from this mortification" is my hopeless prayer, at one
time, and at another, it is the wish of my heart, that if the
government be deaf to the claims of these brave men, they
may take irpon themselves the assertion of them.... But how
many evils would be prevented by declining this fruitless
struggle with the elements ? how many lives, glorious to
themselves and useful to their country, might be saved by
a wiser policy?
" Perhaps I may be charged with exaggerating the dan-
gers to be dreaded from the climate. Why, it will be
asked, has not this dreadful havock been experienced on
former occasions? The island has always been garrisoned,
and why did not some sagacious counsellor commend the
desertion of it, on account of this hostility between the air
and the soldier? Why dread these evils now which were
never before felt?
" These evils have always been felt. It is well known,
that in all the calculations of the servants of the monarchy,
on colonial supplies, the destruction of two-thirds of the
soldiery, by the climate, in a few months, was regularly
taken into account. The whole number was small, be-
cause no enemy was at hand, and therefore the enormous
waste was less perceptible. But now how different are
our circumstances? Not only there will be no end to our
detachments thither, but the life of ceaseless toil, in moun-
tain marches and midnight skirmishes, with a lurking and
marauding enemy, will give tenfold force to the unwhole-
some elements. Formerly a few hundreds were sufficient
to guard the public peace, but now how many thousands,
think you, will be requisite to dispossess an armed nation,
fighting under a provident and valiant leader, for their soil,
their liberty, their very being?
" Do we not all know what the revolution has done on
both sides of the ocean? It has changed an half a million
of helpless and timorous slaves, the mere tools of the
farmer and the artizan, the sordid cattle of the field, intŠ
men, and citizens, and soldiers.