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Lettre aux auteurs du Journal de Paris

Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Letter Authors Journal Paris Response Mosneron l'Aunay Evidence British Commons Africa Slave Trade France

Clarkson's letter is written in response to a letter published in the Supplement to the Journal de Paris on 24 January 1790 by Nantes deputy M. Mosneron de l'Aunay. Mosneron had used the pro-slave trade evidence presented to the British House of Commons in order to argue for the trade's continuance. Clarkson replies that just because a bad system is rooted in tradition it should not continue indefinitely: "if this were the case, France would have been wrong in overthrowing Despotism, because it had long reigned there, and the Nation would have remained in chains" (1). Clarkson also offers to present his box of African produce to the French National Assembly alongside members of the Amis des Noirs society, in order to prove that a legitimate trade with Africa was possible, and cites the French traveller and former governor of Senegal, Stanislas de Boufflers to this effect.

The handwritten manuscript draft of this article, in English, is held by St. John's College, University of Cambridge. See also the letter by Abbé Fauchet, published in the journal Révolutions de Paris, no. 29 (January 1790), 41-43, responding to the same piece by de l'Aunay.