. 'M


 I
 260 THE LIFE or

 dren, in order to prevent them from rising up to avenge
 father.
 After having been bound to the mast of a vessel, Ma
 was frightfully insulted. His wife, his children, and his sold
 were brought to be drowned under his eyes. The execution "
 were astounded when they beheld a father fix his dying eyes
 turns on his children, his wile, and his companion.i in arms, na
 dergoing a violent death; while they, on their part, turned theui
 eyes away frnm a father, a husband, a general, whose count
 nance was disfigured by the torture- he was enduring. Af n
 being made to contemplate each other's sufferings, they we r
 all tossed into the ocean. They died without complaining '
 a manner worthy the champions of liberty. With a reveraj.i
 of the order of nature, the father died last; he also 'uffere4 
 most.
 Thus died Maurepas, whose character was a compoulc o'.i
 frankness and severity. Thrice had he repulsed the French at'l
 the gorge of TroiAs-livibres; he had at on,:e the glory and their
 misfortune to go ov,.r to the Fren, h with victorioumi arms. The .
 elevation of his soul qiialle'd his valur. bie preserve-d a tow-..
 der feeling lor the master wiho-e clav~t he had bren; he cause"
 funeral honors to be paid to that master, and when his grave ha4i
 been negligently prepared, he threw off his upper garment ia
 order to perform the pious office properl.. Amoug men of hil
 own blood he was a powerful chiel. A spirit of order and jut.
S tice prevailed in his li'i. lii rickhi, which were ron-iderablei
 were given up to pillage. It would almost 6eem as if so much
 excellence were subjected to so much ignominy, expressly
 show that while black men are capable o'any sirtue, white men
 are capable of any crime. Certainly, my narrative is reple
 with instances which, beyond a question, prove that moral
 well as mental excellence is independe-nt of the variiest
 color.
 This brutal punishment, prl-ei'el-d by ';l- perlidv, filled t
 camps of the insurgenti with horror. Thint orror was
 mented when Rochambeau, at the Cape, put to drath five