134
HISTORY OF  ST.  DOMINGO.
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chap. Hi. another misfortune arose, which, however it might have been
""^r^ long  expected,  was  still  more  unlooked-for than any other.
Witnesses of the general commotion of the colony, and per-
ceiving that,  notwithstanding the  attention which had been
paid by the mother-country to the people of colour, (except
interweaving their sufferings with the subject, for the purposes
of oratory,) nothing was proposed with regard to them;  the
negroes began to consider of some melioration for themselves
among the new arrangements then taking place.    As they had
unfortunately perceived that the first step in all the disputes of
their masters had consisted of outrage, so they determined to
follow those means which promised such certain success, and at
the same time, afforded objects the most grateful to people in
a state of slavery.    It cannot be denied, that they may have felt
no great pleasure in contemplating an acquisition of power by
the mulattoes, who, from being, according to their own ac-
count, more conversant with their habits, and better acquainted
with  their  dispositions,   had   always  been  considered by  the
negroes as their severest masters; it is very probable, that they
exercised the same, or greater rigor,  over the negroes,  than
they received themselves from the whites.    Be this as it may,
August 23.    while a perfect calm seemed to pervade every contending in-
terest, one morning before day-break a sudden and confused
alarm spread throughout the town of the Cape, that the negro
slaves in the neighbouring parishes had revolted, were murder-
ing the whites, and setting fire to the plantations.    The governor
immediately assembled all the military officers, but nothing cer-
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