A little further on, in the same work, ridiculing the notion
entertained in France, that the negroes would not work without
compulsion, he takes occasion to allude to other negroes who had been
liberated by the same proclamation, but who were more immediately
under his own eye. "If," says he, "you will take care not to speak to
them of their return to slavery, but talk to them about their
liberty, you may, with this latter word, chain them down to labor.
How did Toussaint succeed? How did I succeed also, before his time,
in the plain of the Cul de Sac, and on the plantation Gouraud, more
than eight months after liberty had been granted (by Polverel) to the
slaves? Let those who knew me at the time, and even the blacks
themselves, be asked. They will all reply that _not a single negro_
on that plantation, consisting of more than 460 laborers, _refused to
work;_ and yet this plantation was thought to be under the worst
discipline, and the slaves the most idle in the plain. I, myself,
inspired the same activity into three other plantations, of which I
had the management."

The above account is far beyond any thing that could have been
reasonably expected; indeed, it is most gratifying. We find that the
liberated negroes, _both in the South and West,_ continued to work on
_their old plantations,_ and for _their old masters;_ so that there
was also a spirit of industry among them; for they are described as
continuing to work _as quietly as before._ Such was the conduct of
the negroes for the first nine months after their liberation, up to
the middle of 1794. Of the conduct of the negroes during the year
1795, and part of 1796, I find no account. Had there been any
outrages, they would have been mentioned. Let no one connect the
outrages, which assuredly took place in St. Domingo in 1791 and 1792,
_with the effects of the emancipation of the slaves._ The great