“It is so,” replied the old priest. “Our wishes are fast fulfilling.”
“Eight thousand marriages have been celebrated, as will appear in our reports,” added the young priest.
“And in the difficult cases of a plurality of wives,” resumed Father Antioche, “there is generally a willingness in the cultivators to maintain liberally those who are put away.”
“And the children?”
“The children may be found in the schools, sitting side by side in peace. The quarrels of the children of different mothers (quarrels often fatal in the fields) disappear in the schools. The reports well exhibit the history of our expanding system.”
“God be thanked!” Toussaint uttered in a low voice.
“Under the religions rule of your excellency,” said the young priest, “enforced by so pure an example of piety, the morals of this colony will be established, and the salvation of its people secured.”
“You,” said Toussaint, “the servants of Christ, are the true rulers of this island and its inhabitants. I am your servant in guarding external order, during a period which you will employ in establishing your flocks in the everlasting wisdom and peace of religion. I hold the inferior office of keeping our enemies in awe, and enabling our people to find subsistence and comfort. My charge is the soil on which, and the bodies in which, men live. You have in charge their souls, in which lies the future of this world and of the next. You are the true rulers of Saint Domingo; and we bow to you as such.”
Every head was immediately bowed, and the priests went out, amidst the obeisances of the whole assemblage—some of the order wondering, perhaps, whether every mind there was as sincere in its homage as that of the Commander-in-chief.
The superintendents of the cultivators came next—negroes dressed in check shirts, white linen jackets and trousers, and with the usual Madras handkerchief on the head. They, too, handed in reports; and to them also did Toussaint address his questions, with an air of respect almost equal to that with which he had spoken to the priests.