(The ending is a little incomplete, please wait 10 minutes. I'm very sorry!)
Number three, Clapton Street.
The reporter eagerly looked at Willberforce and said, "So, have you heard about the abolition of slavery on a certain island?"
In fact, members of the "Clapton Saints" had only heard that the Saint Domingo Council had passed the abolition act, the details of which were unclear.
However, the journalist had just brought them "the latest news obtained by the newspaper," so they had no doubts whatsoever.
Willberforce nodded, "Indeed, it is exhilarating news."
"What is your attitude toward the abolition act?"
"I have always opposed the inhumane slave trade, so any action that leads to the liberation of slaves should be encouraged."
As a government official, Willberforce could only speak official niceties and then he looked toward a member of the "Clapton Saints," Thomas Clarkson.
The latter obviously had no reservations and laughed, "The French people have inflicted extreme cruelty upon those West African blacks, and now the slaves are taking their revenge on them, a tremendous victory for the abolitionist movement.
"I wish for Saint Domingo... ah, the free blacks on that island, and their allies, to make the slave owners pay their dues! Ha-ha, now these, you cannot publish."
The other members of the "Clapton Saints" immediately burst into laughter.
The British have always enjoyed seeing the French come to grief. In reality, England had far more black slaves in Jamaica, the West Indies, and other places than the French did, but double standards were always what they were best at.
Earl Middleton added from the side, "As everyone knows, the French are the cruelest to the black slaves in the whole world; it's no surprise at all that they have come to this situation today."
The journalist then interviewed for a long time with circumlocutory questions and, through leading questions, made it seem like Willberforce and others were quite familiar with the situation in Saint Domingo.
The next day, the journalist brought the finished interview manuscript for Willberforce to review.
The latter read through it roughly and, seeing that it did not mention specific names like Saint Domingo, agreed to have the article published in tomorrow's newspaper.
Since Willberforce was a well-known abolitionist, supporting the abolition event could actually enhance his political prestige. Moreover, it could also irritate the French, so naturally he wouldn't decline.
Thus, the interview about the abolition event on "a certain island" was soon published in the English newspapers and was quickly reprinted by many countries, even the American newspapers published the article.
Willberforce had not realized until then that he had fallen into a trap.
The journalist was naturally arranged by the French Intelligence Bureau, and much of what he told Willberforce and others about the situation in Saint-Domingue was news that had not yet reached England.
For example, Oreal's troops defeating the Saint-Domingue Government Army, and the people of the Book movement fleeing Saint-Domingue, all had occurred more than a month ago. The French Intelligence Bureau had known Oreal's plans early on, thus they could send the news back to Europe at the fastest speed, but the British would need at least three to four days later to learn of the matter, after all, it was an era without the internet, you had to send people to the scene to figure out what happened.
But Willberforce got a "spoiler" from the journalist and wrote it into his interview draft.
After more than half a month, the news of a severe slave rebellion in the United States finally reached Europe.
People quickly learned that the Black devils sweeping through Georgia were the "Book rioters" driven out to sea by the Saint-Domingue Government Army.
Then explosive news came out that these rioting Black devils claimed it was the "great Duke of Leeds" who had provided them with weapons. When they were defeated by the army of the Governor of Saint-Domingue, it was also the Duke of Leeds' ship that brought them to the United States.
Even more, these Black devils forced American craftsmen to erect a statue of the Duke of Leeds in Meili Town—with his full name engraved on the base.
In the drawing-room on the second floor, the American envoy Connor Tristan was handing a diplomatic note to Lord Grenville, who had just returned to the country, with an icy face.
"If you cannot provide a reasonable explanation, your country's actions will be seen as a provocation to the United States!" Tristan was obviously extremely angry.
Already over a thousand people in Georgia were victims of the Book rioters, nearly a third of plantations were destroyed, and many more plantation owners left their homes to seek refuge for fear of being affected.
Currently, those Black devils were besieging Savannah City, which housed over 70,000 inhabitants. If taken, the consequences would be unthinkable.
Bear in mind that so far, not a single white person who has fallen into the hands of those brutal Black devils has survived. Moreover, most were tortured to death, with more than 50 whites from a certain plantation all thrown into boiling water and scalded alive.
Lord Grenville took a deep breath and defended, "Clearly, those Black devils are trying to frame the Duke of Leeds, and I can assure you that he has absolutely nothing to do with this matter."
"Did they not hang people upside down, drown them in sacks, nail them to boards, bury them alive, crush them with howitzers? Did they not force them to eat feces? They whipped them, didn't they throw them alive to be eaten by bugs, or onto ant hills, or tie them to the stakes in the swamps for mosquitoes to feast on? Did they not throw them into huge cauldrons where sugar syrup was boiled? Did they not put men and women in barrels studded with nails and roll them down the hillside into the abyss? Did they not deliver these poor Black people to man-eating hounds? Until the man-eating dogs were satiated with human flesh, the remaining injured victims were finished off with bayonets and polo mallets?"—Henri Christophe, former Haitian slave and a key leader of the Haitian Revolution.
Throughout the colony, armed slaves stormed into their masters' residences, bringing fire and blood, and sought revenge on their masters through looting, rape, torture, and death. They slaughtered the servants, burned their masters' dwellings, sugar fields, and sugar mills. Just as with the extreme violence and atrocities of Haitian slavery, the retaliation of the slaves when they finally arose was extremely violent and cruel from the start. When the tables turned, supervisors, masters, and mistresses were dragged from their beds, the lucky ones killed on the spot. The unfortunate ones were tortured, often using the tools and techniques meant for tormenting slaves. The severed heads of European children were usually nailed onto spikes and carried at the top of advancing slave columns.
Santo Domingo was the most lucrative real estate market in the sugar country at the time. Seemingly overnight, this sugar country had turned into a smoldering, bloody wilderness. Within weeks, the slaves killed more than 4,000 whites, burned at least 180 sugarcane plantations, 900 coffee plantations, many indigo plantations, and caused millions of francs in damages.