To hear Malouet, Maury, and Barnave, freedom was civil
war, with the skin for cockade ; it was, through the defeat
of the white race, the disruption of the tie which united
the colonies to the mother country. Divided between
justice and fear, the Assembly decided by a decree, March
8, l'if90, and instructions, March 28, that the colonies
should continue to live under the regime of special laws,
and should make known their voice by the organ of the
Colonial Assemblies, to which alone belonged the initiative
of laws concerning the condition of persons. Article 4 of
the instructions reads : — -

^' All persons, who have attained the full age of twenty-
five, owners of real estate, or, in default of such property,
domiciliated for two years in the parish, and subject to

sent a M. de Richepray to Cayenne to purchase an estate and divide it among
the negroes, for which purpose he conferred with the missionaries of Saint-
Esprit. A letter from the Marshal de Castries, dated June 6, 1785, proves that
Louis XVI. ordered similar experiments.
* See the excellent work published in the Revue coloniale^ 1850, Tom. IV.
Series 11. p. 149f under the title, Les Colonies et les Assemblees de la Revolution
(1789-1802), by M. Maurel-Dupeyr4.
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HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION. 31

taxation, will unite to form the parish assembly/' This was
styled the Colonial Assembly.
Abbe Gregoire asked whether the words all persons in-
cluded persons of color. Charles de Lameth hastened to
urge the Assembly to close the debate on this indiscreet
interrogation, which was done.
Bloody disturbances in the colonies were the result of
this ambiguity, which the whites interpreted against the
free negroes, and which the latter invoked in their favor.
