At the very next meeting of the committee, Claviere produced
anonymous letters, which he had received, and in which it was stated that,
if the society of the Friends of the Negros did not dissolve itself, he and
the rest of them would be stabbed. It was said that no less than three
hundred persons had associated themselves for this purpose. I had received
similar letters myself; and on producing mine, and comparing the
hand-writing in both, it appeared that the same persons had written them.
In a few days after this the public prints were filled with the most
malicious representations of the views of the committee. One of them was,
that they were going to send twelve thousand muskets to the Negros in St.
Domingo, in order to promote an insurrection there. This declaration was so
industriously circulated, that a guard of soldiers was sent to search the
committee-room; but these were soon satisfied, when they found only two or
three books and some waste paper. Reports equally unfounded and wicked were
spread also in the same papers relative to myself. My name was mentioned at
full length, and the place of my abode hinted at. It was stated at one
time, that I had proposed such wild and mischievous plans to the committee
in London relative to the abolition of the Slave-trade, that they had cast
me out of their own body, and that I had taken refuge in Paris, where I now
tried to impose equally on the French nation.
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