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- knows that the first fight was caused by the hard resistance of the whites (Maillard’s equals in manners and conduct) against the coloreds’ likely not entirely unsupported pretentions, which resistance was supported by the colonial government.
A reference, in the interrogation, concerning what has occurred at the Windward Islands is equally unfortunate for there, on Barbados, they have just presently repealed all disqualifications which yet applied to the freedmen, and on Granada they have placed the militia officers of color on exactly the same footing as the white officers by giving them commissions and by even associating with them; Overall, on the English islands, in the most recent times, it would appear that the necessity to gather the colored population unto themselves is strongly felt.
Concerning the particular influence which Maillard predicts on this island of having the colored officers receive orders of the day together with the whites, I have, for Your Majesty, so extensively developed the reasons which have led to my determination, and the policy which I believe ought to be followed regarding the freedmen that I have nothing to add.
Maillard, by the way, is a Creole from St. Martin, an island, known in revolutionary times for all sorts of disorder; his life there is otherwise not known to me, but here, he is a person of no importance or reputation and it would not at all be worthwhile to burden Your Majesty with his gestures unless the judgment of the court martial, which has given him the least possible fine for so qualified an insubordination offence, did not show that the sentiments by whites, maillard’s betters, is on this point as poor as is his.
He pretends Danishness, (as, in a private conversation, he has expressed it, to gain the hearts and minds at home where he anticipates the case will be appealed) he states his opposition to Harcourt, who wanted the militia in some order for preservation of domestic tranquility, most likely in complete concert with the capitulation, as a test of this patriotic mindset. However, this resistance against lawful authority only goes to prove that he is a worthy relative of the disturbers of peace inhabiting the island from whence he came.
Now it has, on the one hand, been shown that it would be an extremely difficult or rather fruitless job to administrate these colonies if, as a rule, open and premeditated insubordination with attempted conspiracy (which may be seen in Maillard’s own ex- |