LETTER from the Minister to the Administrators, which forbids granting any passage to France to the enslaved and to free nègres

You are informed, Gentlemen, of the reasons that led the King to permit the settlers of the Colonies to bring or send their enslaved people to France, and to leave them there for three years. This permission had two main objects; the first, to have them instructed in the Catholic Religion; and the second, to have them learn trades useful for the work of the plantations. Far from these objects having been fulfilled, the nègres find themselves without instruction, and little fit to fill the trades for which they were destined; on the other hand, the number of the enslaved has increased so greatly in France, and since, that a mixed blood has resulted, which multiplies every day, through the communication they have with White people. The King judged it indispensable, to put an end to this disorder, to send all these enslaved people back to the Colonies from which they came. The necessary orders have been given for this, so that the total expulsion takes place by next October, on pain of confiscation.