color_--interpreted each in their own favor. This difference of
interpretation gave rise to animosities between them, which were
augmented by political party spirit, according as they were
royalists, or partisans of the French revolution, so that
disturbances took place, and blood was shed.

In the year 1791, the people of color petitioned the Assembly again,
but principally for an explanation of the decree in question.

On the 15th of May, the subject was taken into consideration, and
the result was another decree in more explicit terms, which
determined that the people of color in all the French islands were
entitled to all the rights of citizens, provided they were born of
_free parents on both sides._ The news of this decree no sooner
arrived at the Cape, than it produce an indignation almost amounting
to frenzy among the whites. They directly trampled under foot the
national cockade, and with difficulty were prevented from seizing all
the merchant ships in the roads. After this, the two parties armed
against each other. Even camps began to be formed. Horrible massacres
and conflagrations followed, the reports of which, when brought to
the mother country, were so terrible that the Assembly rescinded the
decree in favor of the people of color in the same year.

In 1792, the news of this new decree reached St. Domingo, and
produced as much irritation among the people of color, as the news of
the former had done among the whites; and hostilities were renewed on
both sides.

As soon as these events became known in France, the Conventional
Assembly, which had then succeeded the Legislature, seeing no hope of