Oge, deputed to Paris by the men of colour to assert their rights in the Constituent Assembly, had become known to Brissot, Raynal, Gregoire, and was affiliated with them to the Society of the Friends of the Blacks.  Passing thence into England, he became known to the admirable philanthropist, Clarkson.  Clarkson and his friend at this time were pleading the cause of the emancipation of the negroes:  they were the first apostles of that religion of humanity who believed that they could not raise their hands purely towards God, so long as those hands retained a link of that chain which holds a race of human beings in degradation and in slavery.  The association with these men of worth expanded Oge’s mind.  He had come to Europe only to defend the interest of the mulattoes; he now took up with warmth the more liberal and holy cause of all the blacks; he devoted himself to the liberty of all his brethren.  He returned to France, and became very intimate with Barnave; he entreated the Constituent Assembly to apply the principles of liberty to the colonies, and not to make any exception to Divine law, by leaving the slaves to their masters; excited and irritated by the hesitation of the committee, who withdrew with one hand what it gave with the other, he declared that if justice could not suffice for their cause, he would appeal to force.  Barnave had said, “Perish the colonies rather than a principle!” The men of the 14th of July had no right to condemn, in the heart of Oge, that revolt which was their own title to independence.  We may believe that the secret wishes of the friends of the blacks followed Oge, who returned to San Domingo.  He found there the rights of men of colour and the principles of liberty of the blacks more denied and more profaned than ever.  He raised the standard of insurrection, but with the forms and rights of legality.  At the head of a body of two hundred men of colour, he demanded the promulgation in the colonies of the decrees of the National Assembly, despotically delayed until that time.  He wrote to the military commandant at the Cape, “We require the proclamation of the law which makes us free citizens.  If you oppose this, we will repair to Leogane, we will nominate electors, and repel force by force.  The pride of the colonists revolts at sitting beside us:  was the pride of the nobility and clergy consulted when the equality of citizens was proclaimed in France?”

The government replied to this eloquent demand for liberty by sending a body of troops to disperse the persons assembled, and Oge drove them back.

XI.