The consuls presented their exposition of the situation of the Republic to the nation at the opening of the Corps législatif, with a passage on the colonies.

The army was therefore on the point of departing when the policy of the consular government began to reveal itself with regard to the colonies. It was on the occasion of the opening of the Corps législatif. In the exposition of the situation of the Republic which the consuls presented to the nation on 1 frimaire (22 November), one reads this passage:

« In Saint-Domingue, irregular acts have alarmed the population. Under equivocal appearances, the government has been willing to see only the ignorance that confounds names and things, that usurps when it believes it is only obeying; but a fleet and an army, which are preparing to depart from the ports of Europe, will soon have dispelled the clouds, and Saint-Domingue will return entire under the laws of the Republic.

« In Saint-Domingue and in Guadeloupe there are no more enslaved people; all there is free, all there will remain free. Wisdom and time will bring back order there and will establish cultivation and labor.

« In Martinique the principles will be different. Martinique has preserved slavery, and slavery will be preserved there. It has cost humanity too much to attempt yet again, in that part of the world, a new revolution.

« Guiana has prospered under an active and vigorous administrator; it will prosper the more under the reign of peace, and enlarged by a new territory that calls for cultivation and promises riches.

« The islands of France and of Réunion have remained faithful to the mother country, in the midst of factions and under an administration weak and uncertain, such as chance has made it, and which has received from the government neither impulse nor aid. These important colonies are reassured; they no longer fear that the mother country, by giving liberty to the Blacks, will constitute the slavery of the whites (1). »