The place is tranquil. The arrival of General Rochambeau seems to have spread terror among the negroes. I wish they were reduced to order that I might see the so much vaunted habitations where I should repose beneath the shade of orange groves; walk on carpets of rose leaves and frenchipone; be fanned to sleep by silent slaves, or have my feet tickled into extacy by the soft hand of a female attendant.
Such were the pleasures of the Creole ladies whose time was divided between the bath, the table, the toilette and the lover.
What a delightful existence! thus to pass away life in the arms of voluptuous indolence; to wander over flowery fields of unfading verdure, or through forests of majestic palm-trees, sit by a fountain bursting from a savage rock frequented only by the cooing dove, and indulge in these enchanting solitudes all the reveries of an exalted imagination.
But the moment of enjoying these pleasures is, I fear, far distant. The negroes have felt during ten years the blessing of liberty, for a blessing it certainly is, however acquired, and they will not be easily deprived of it. They have fought and vanquished the French troops, and their strength has increased from a knowledge of the weakness of their opposers, and the climate itself combats for them. Inured to a savage life they lay in the woods without being injured by the sun, the dew or the rain. A negro eats a plantain, a sour orange, the herbs and roots of the field, and requires no cloathing, whilst this mode of living is fatal to the European soldiers. The sun and the dew are equally fatal to them, and they have perished in such numbers that, if reinforcements do not arrive, it will soon be impossible to defend the town.
The country is entirely in the hands of the negroes, and whilst their camp abounds in provisions, every thing in town is extremely scarce and enormously dear.
Every evening several old Creoles, who live near us, assemble at our house, and talk of their affairs. One of them, whose annual income before the revolution was fifty thousand dollars, which he always exceeded in his expenses, now lives in a miserable hut and prolongs with the greatest difficulty his wretched existence. Yet he still hopes for better days, in which hope they all join him. The distress they feel has not deprived them of their gaiety. They laugh, they sing, they join in the dance with the young girls of the neighbourhood, and seem to forget their cares in the prospect of having them speedily removed.
LETTER IV.
