The reign of Louis XV. commenced in 1715. By letters-patent which he
issued on the 16th of January, 1716, he granted permission to all the
merchants in his kingdom to engage in the African trade, provided
their ships were fitted out only in the five ports of Rouen, Rochelle,
Bordeaux, Nantes, and St. Malo; nine articles were specially framed
to encourage the trade in slaves, as by the Peace of Utrecht all the
South-Sea ports were closed to the French, and only their own colonies
remained. France no longer made great sums of money by the trade in
slaves, but her colonies began to thrive and demand a new species of
labor. The poor white emigrants were exhausted and demoralized by an
apprenticeship which had all the features of slavery, and by a climate
which will not readily permit a white man to become naturalized even
when he is free.
It is the opinion of some French anti-slavery writers that the _engages_
might have tilled the soil of Hayti to this day, if they had labored for
themselves alone. This is doubtful; the white man can work in almost
every region of the Southern States, but he cannot raise cotton and
sugar upon those scorching plains. It is not essential for the support
of an anti-slavery argument to suppose that he can. Nor is it of any
consequence, so far as the question of free-labor is concerned, either
to affirm or to deny that the white man can raise cotton in Georgia or
sugar in Louisiana.
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