LETTER from the Minister to MM. de Larnage and Maillart, on the ill treatment of the enslaved by their enslavers

More than once complaints had reached me of ill treatment inflicted by the Settlers of Saint-Domingue on their enslaved people. But besides the fact that these complaints had always seemed exaggerated, they were so vague that I could do no more than renew, on each occasion, the orders given at all times to prevent any excess of punishment against the enslaved, and at the same time to enforce toward them a discipline capable of keeping them in respect and fear. For if it is necessary to curb the abuses that inhumane enslavers might make of their authority, it is also of the utmost consequence to do nothing that could lead the enslaved to disregard it and to stray beyond the bounds of dependence and submission in which they must be kept. And it is to reconciling the necessity and maintenance of this authority with the rights of humanity that one must devote oneself in everything done on this matter.