The men of colour had all the vices of _parvenus_ of liberty. But when they perceived that the whites despised them as a mingled race, that the Revolution had not effaced the tinge of their skin, and the injurious prejudices which were attached to their colour; when they in vain claimed for themselves the exercise of civil rights, which the colonists opposed, they passed with the impetuosity and levity of their conduct from one passion to another, from one party to the other, and made common cause with the oppressed race. Their habits of command, fortune, intelligence, energy, boldness, naturally pointed them out as the leaders of the blacks. They fraternised with them, they became popular amongst the blacks, from the very tinge of skin for which they had recently blushed, when in company with the whites. They secretly fomented the germs of insurrection at the nightly meetings of the slaves. They kept up a clandestine correspondence with the friends of the blacks in Paris. They spread widely in the huts, speeches and papers from Paris, which instructed the colonists in their duties and informed the slaves of their indefeasible rights. The rights of man, commented upon by vengeance, became the catechism of all dwellings. The whites trembled; terror urged them to violence. The blood of the mulatto Oge and his accomplices, shed by M. de Blanchelande, governor of San Domingo and the colonial council, sowed every where despair and conspiracy. X. Oge, deputed to Paris by the men of colour to assert their rights in the Constituent Assembly, had become known to Brissot, Raynal, Gregoire, and was affiliated with them to the Society of the Friends of the Blacks. Passing thence into England, he became known to the admirable philanthropist, Clarkson. Clarkson and his friend at this time were pleading the cause of the emancipation of the negroes: they were the first apostles of that religion of humanity who believed that they could not raise their hands purely towards God, so long as those hands retained a link of that chain which holds a race of human beings in degradation and in slavery. The association with these men of worth expanded Oge's mind. He had come to Europe only to defend the interest of the mulattoes; he now took up with warmth the more liberal and holy cause of all the blacks; he devoted himself to the liberty of all his brethren. He returned to France, and became very intimate with Barnave; he entreated the Constituent Assembly to apply the principles of liberty to the colonies, and not to make any exception to Divine law, by leaving the slaves to their masters; excited and irritated by the hesitation of the committee, who withdrew with one hand what it gave with the other, he declared that if justice could not suffice for their cause, he would appeal to force. Barnave had said, "_Perish the colonies rather than a principle!_" The men of the 14th of July had no right to condemn, in the