He expressed his surprise
at the state of some of the arts in Africa. He sent them back on the
same day on which he had examined them, and commissioned Mr. Necker to
return me his thanks, and to say that he had been highly gratified with
what he had seen; and with respect to the _Essay on the Impolicy of the
Slave Trade_, that he would read it with all the seriousness which such
a subject deserved.
My correspondence with the Comte de Mirabeau was now drawing near to its
close. I had sent him a letter every other day for a whole month, which
contained from sixteen to twenty pages; he usually acknowledged the
receipt of each; hence many of his letters came into my possession:
these were always interesting, on account of the richness of the
expressions they contained. Mirabeau even in his ordinary discourse was
eloquent; it was his peculiar talent to use such words, that they who
heard them were almost led to believe that he had taken great pains to
cull them for the occasion. But this his ordinary language was the
language also of his letters; and as they show a power of expression, by
which the reader may judge of the character of the eloquence of one, who
was then undoubtedly the greatest orator in France, I have thought it
not improper to submit one of them to his perusal in the annexed
note[A].
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