This of course raised a clamour among the friends of the blacks and mulattoes, who considered it as sanctioning the slave-trade, which they wanted to put down. In Hayti the General Assembly met and made some radical changes, which were opposed by many of the old colonists, and this brought discord among the whites. The Governor dissolved the Assembly, but this only brought more trouble, for the subordinate Western body took the part of the General Assembly, and went so far that the Governor tried to suppress it by force. But the members put themselves under the protection of the national guard who resisted the troops sent against them, and after a short skirmish drove them off. Thus all authority was put at defiance by the whites, when if they wanted to keep down the coloured and black people, it was of the greatest consequence that union should exist. The General Convention called the colony to arms, but, before actually commencing hostilities, they resolved to proceed to France, and lay the whole matter before the Convention. Accordingly to the number of eighty-five they sailed on the 8th of August, 1790, the authorities also agreeing to await the result. Among the coloured residents in France was a young man named James Ogé, the son of a mulatto woman by a white man, whose mother owned a coffee plantation. He was a regular attendant at the meetings of the friends of the blacks, where, under such men as Lafayette and Robespierre, he had been initiated into the doctrine of the equal rights of men. On hearing of the vote of non-interference with the colonies, Ogé, maddened by the thought that the civil disabilities of people of his colour would be continued, resolved to go himself to Hayti. He was confident that the people there would join him, and going out by way of the United States he obtained there a good supply of arms, with which he arrived in October of the same year.