At the next meeting it was resolved, that a letter should be written to
the new president for the same purpose as the former. This, it was said,
was now rendered essentially necessary; for the merchants, planters, and
others interested in the continuance of the Slave Trade, were so alarmed
at the enthusiasm of the French people in favour of the new order of
things, and of any change recommended to them, which had the appearance
of prompting the cause of liberty, that they held daily committees to
watch and to thwart the motions of the friends of the Negroes. It was
therefore thought proper, that the appeal to the Assembly should be
immediate on this subject, before the feelings of the people should
cool, or before they, who were thus interested, should poison the minds
by calculations of loss and gain. The silence of the former president
was already attributed to the intrigues of the planters' committee. No
time therefore was to be lost. The letter was accordingly written, but
as no answer was ever returned to it, they attributed this second
omission to the same cause.
I do not really know whether interested persons ever did, as was
suspected, intercept the letters of the committee to the two presidents
as now surmised; or whether they ever dissuaded them from introducing so
important a question for discussion, when the nation was in such a
heated state; but certain it is, that we had many, and I believe
barbarous, enemies to encounter.
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