We have been favoured by a friend with the following extract of a letter from Grenada, by the last West India Packet.
“A Mr. C– has just arrive here from Martinico, where he left the white inhabitants in arms. The negroes there had conceived an idea, that the Parliament of England had set the English negroes free ; where upon those on several of the most considerable estates assembled together to the amount of 4000, and retired to the mountains, declaring, they would no longer be slaves ; saying, that they had as good a right to be free, as the negroes in the English islands. What has been the event is unknown ; but some reports say that they had arms, and had resisted the military and the militia ; and that 400 had been taken and condemned to die. It is a little singular that such an alarming spirit of discontent should first make its appearance among the French negroes, if they are (as has been assented by several writers) so much more civilized, so much better treated, than those of the English islands. God knows what bloodshed may soon follow, from the mistaken humanity of some well meaning, but ill informed leaders among you.”
Citation: Glasgow Advertiser (Glasgow, United Kingdom), 20 November 1789, available at the Scissors and Paste Database, http://www.scissorsandpaste.net/25.