When La Fayette had been proscribed in 1792, the National Convention confiscated all his property, and ordered his negroes at Cayenne to be sold, in spite of the remonstrances of La Fayette, who declared that the negroes had been purchased only to receive their liberty after they had been prepared to exercise it by proper education, and not to be again sold as slaves. At a later period all the negroes of the French colonies were declared free by a decree of the National Convention. It is interesting to note in connection with this effort of La Fayette to bring about the abolition of slavery, that during his last visit to America he visited a free school of young Africans in New York, which had been founded and instituted by the society for the emancipation of the negroes. This incident is related of his visit to this school. A young negro approached La Fayette and said to him, with much emotion: “You see, General, these hundreds of poor African children who appear before you; here they share the benefits of education with the children of the whites: like them, they learn to cherish the recollection of the services which you have rendered to America, and they also revere in you an ardent friend to the emancipation of their race.” La Fayette was very desirous of instituting prison reforms in France, but he was no advocate for the complete seclusion of prisoners. “Solitary confinement,” said he, “is a punishment which to be judged of must have been endured.” Surely he spoke from a bitter experience, for he had suffered its terrible tortures for one year. Capital punishment was held in horror by La Fayette, and he constantly raised his voice against such penalty, especially in matters of political misdemeanors. And no wonder that he shrank in loathing abhorrence from the bloody guillotine, after his experience of the awful Reign of Terror. M. Cloquet says in his recollections of La Fayette, regarding his opinions on different subjects:— “He was familiar with all questions of morals, jurisprudence, policy, and public economy, and he could have treated them all _ex professo_. I have frequently heard him speak of the resources of France and other states; of the relations which people and governments should have to each other; of constitutions, legitimacy, property; of commerce, industry, agriculture; of the art of war, the progress of civilization, the happiness of nations and individuals; and other questions which he treated in the most lucid manner, and which he solved with his natural good sense and simplicity.” The Encyclopædia Britannica thus sums up the characteristics of La Fayette:—