The mulattoes were generally selfish, and did not care to have slavery disturbed. When their deputies went to Paris, to offer the Republic a splendid money-tribute of six million livres, and to plead their cause, one of their number, Vincent Ogé, dined with Clarkson at Lafayette's, and succeeded in convincing the great Abolitionist that he believed in emancipation. "The slave-trade," they said, "was the parent of all the miseries in St. Domingo, not only on account of the cruel treatment it occasioned to the slaves, but on account of the discord which it constantly kept up between the whites and people of color, in consequence of the hateful distinctions it introduced. These distinctions could never be obliterated while it lasted. They had it in their instructions, in case they should obtain a seat in the Assembly, to propose an immediate abolition of the slave-trade, and an immediate amelioration of the state of slavery also, with a view to its abolition in fifteen years."[28] There is reason to doubt the entire sincerity of these representations, but they were sufficient to convert every proprietor into a bitter foe of mulatto recognition. The deputies were soon after admitted to the bar of the National Assembly, whose president told them that their claims were worthy of consideration. They said to Clarkson that this speech of the president "had roused all the white colonists in Paris. Some of these had openly insulted them. They had held also a meeting on the subject of this speech; at which they had worked themselves up so as to become quite furious. Nothing but intrigue was now going forward among them to put off the consideration of the claims of the free people of color." The deputies at length left Paris in despair. Ogé exclaimed, "If we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that thousands will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our former state." Clarkson counselled patience; but he found "that there was a spirit of dissatisfaction in them, which nothing but a redress of their grievances could subdue,--and that, if the planters should persevere in their intrigues, and the National Assembly in delay, a fire would be lighted up in St. Domingo which could not easily be extinguished."--This was the position of the Mulatto party.