OF   THE   CIVIL   WARS.                         [93
Had thefourteen-fifteenths of Blacks who composed
the population of the South-west chosen to oppose the
ambitious projectB of Rigaud and of Pétion, is it not as
clear as day that the one-fifteenth of Men of Colour,
could not have prevented them» Now the Blacks, as
well as the Men of Colour, neglected their true interest,
which was to remain perpetually united and indis-
solubly attached. They suffered - themselves to be
deceived: led astray by the delusions of ambition, they
became disunited ; inextinguishable animosities arose,
and, as though there had not already been sufficient
cause for disunion and civil war, an absurd antipathy
and a ridiculous prejudice has been created between
the Haytiara of the North, the West, and the South,
who think themselves each superior to the others Only
from their belonging to different provinces.
It is the duty of a wise and conciliatory Government
gradually to remove all these causes of civil war and
disunion. The King of Hayti cannot be King of a
province but of a kingdom : and the head of a nation
cannot be the leader of a faction; he is the chief of the
nation. It is the interest of a Government to promote
union, of a faction to sow dissension. A Government
concentrates the whole strength of a nation, and has
nothing to dread but from external enemies : the spirit
of faction tends on the contrary to perpetuate disunion
and civil war, which constitutes in every age and
country the hope and triumph of a foreign foe.
The course of the Revolution having proved that
our white enemies, however divided in political opinions
among themselves, were perfectly unanimous whenever
the destruction of the Haytians was under discussion ;
the cause of the white French being then, I say, unique,
that of the Haytians, however divided in opinion,
«hould be unique also for  their preservation;   their