port of the local government of this colony. Nor did the company formed at Barcelona, in 1757, with exclusive privileges for the re-establishment of St. Domingo, ever make any considerable' progress. They only sent out two small vessels annually, which were freighted back with 5000 hides, and other commodities.

The Spanish government was, however, roused to some exertions in favor of St. Domingo at the close of the last century. Settlers were encouraged to come hither from the Canary Islands, the monopoly imposed on its trade was relaxed, and encouragements were held out to agriculture and commerce. Under the influence of these measures the colony began to improve, the towns and villages were rebuilt and peopled, new plantations were laid out, and the trade with the French part of the island became considerable. At the period of the French revolution, in 1789, the Spaniards had twenty-four sugarworks in St. Domingo. They paid with raw sugar, hides, timber, and piastres for the small number of cargoes they received from Europe. Besides 11,000 heads of cattle, they furnished the French part of St. Domingo with horses, mules, and some tobacco. Next to the ancient city of St. Domingo, their principal towns were Monte Christi, La Vega, Št. Jago, Zeibo, St. Thomé, Azua, and Isabella.

This part of the island was ceded formally to France by the treaty of Basle, July 22nd, 1795: but it was not taken possession of by that power until 1801, when the unfortunate Toussaint L'Ouverture appeared before the capital at the head of a considerable French force. At this period it is said 25,000 of the inhabitants emigrated to Cuba, South America, or other of the Spanish settlements, so averse were they to the French yoke. At the close of 1808 attempts to expel the French were openly made: in November the French commander was shut up in the capital; but it was not until July of the following year that he surrendered, when a British armament, under General Carmichael, came to the aid of the Spaniards. Since this period they have declared their independence of the mother country, and offered their allegiance to the new republic of Colombia. At the period of its cession to France, the Spanish part of St Domingo bad 125,000 inhabitants, 110,000 of whom were free people, and 15,000 negro slaves. Land was at six French livres, or five shillings the arpent; and labor at two French livres, sixty-one centimes, or a little better than two shillings per day. Walton estimates the inhabitants of this part, in 1810, at 104,000. We have seen that there had been a considerable emigration, which he excludes from this amount.

We have noticed the visits, and, under that article, the settlement, of the BUCCANIERS, in St. Domingo. That part of this singular community, which abandoned the sea for its fertile valleys, consisted principally of Frenchmen, and became acknowledged subjects by the government of France at the close of the seventeenth century. In 1669 the planters here amounted to upwards of 1500; Bertrand Dogeron, a man of considerable talents and probity, having been deputed to form them into a regular colony. In

1670, however, the, oppressive measures of the French West India Company caused the inhabitants of this part of St. Domingo to revolt: and tranquillity was only restored at the price of a free trade to France, subject to a duty of five per cent. paid to the company on the arrival and departure of all vessels.

Under the excellent management of Dogeron the colony continued to prosper; but after his death, in 1673, it languished under the monopoly of exclusive trading companies. Three years before his death the town of Cape François had been founded by Gobin, a French Protestant, whom the persecutions of Louis XIV. had driven from his native land. In 1688, several slaves having been taken from the English, the inhabitants of St. Domingo began to turn their attention to the culture of the sugar-cane. With this view they increased their stock of negroes, and in 1694, taking advantage of the misfortunes which had befallen the English colony of Jamaica, they effected a landing in that island, and carried off a considerable number of slaves. The English, in their turn, attacked the settlement of Cape François in the following year, which they plundered and reduced to ashes. It was, however, soon rebuilt. At the peace of Ryswick, the French obtained the first regular cession of the western part of St. Domingo, and in 1702, Port-au-Prince was made the seat of the government, but the town of the cape continued in every other respect the capital of the colony. The French in St. Domingo flourished as the Spaniards decayed. Their colony, which in the time of Herrera counted 14,000 Castilians, besides a proportional number of other inhabitants, had, in 1717, only 18,410 individuals of every description; whilst, according to the abbe Raynal, the produce of the French colony, in 1720, amounted to 1,200,000 lbs. of indigo, 1,400,000 lbs. of white sugar, and 21,000,000 lbs. of raw sugar. From 1722, when the French colony of St. Domingo was freed from the yoke of exclusive trading companies, it rose gradually to the highest pitch of prosperity. In the year 1754, the value of the various commodities of the colony was £1,261,469 sterling, and the imports from the mother country £1,777,509 sterling. There were 14,000 white inhabitants, 4000 free mulattoes, and upwards of 172,000 negroes; 599 sugar plantations, 3379 of indigo, 98,946 cocoa trees, 6,300,367 cotton plants, and nearly 22,000,000 cassia trees; 63,000 horses and mules, 93,000 heads of horned cattle, 6,000,000 banana trees; upwards of 1,000,000 plots of potatoes, 226,000 plots of yams; and nearly 3,000,000 trenches of manioc.

In 1789 the prosperity of the French part of St. Domingo was at its greatest height. It was divided into the northern, western, and southern provinces. The first extended about forty leagues along the northern coast, from the river Massacre to cape St. Nicholas, and contained, inclusive of the island of Tortuga, twenty-six parishes. The principal towns were Cape François, Fort Dauphin, Port de Paix, and Cape St. Nicholas. The western province commenced at this cape, and terminated at Cape Tiburon. It contained fourteen parishes; its chief towns were Port-au

Prince, St. Marc, Leogane, Petit Goave, and Jérémie. The southern province occupied the remaining coast from Cape Tiburon to l'Anse-à Pitre, and contained ten parishes and two towns, Cayes and Jacmel. The cultivated land amounted to 2,290,000 English acres, or 771,275 carreaux of French measurement, 350 feet on every side to the carreau. But Barbé Marbois, in his Compte rendu des finances de St. Domingue, en 1789, reckons the cultivated land at 570,210 carreaux only. There were 792 sugar plantations, 2810 coffee plantations, 705 cotton plantations, 3097 indigo plantations, sixty-nine cacao plantations, and 173 distilleries of rum. The produce of these plantations, in 1788, consisted of 163,405,500lbs. of sugar, 68,151,000 lbs. of coffee, 6,289,000 lbs. of cotton, 930,000 lbs. of indigo, 150,000 lbs. of cacao, 34,453,000 lbs. of syrup, worth in all, with some less important articles, 135,763,000 French livres. It was sent to France in 686 vessels of 199,122 tons. The goods imported into the colony from different ports of France, in 465 vessels of 138,624 tons, amounted to the value of 54,578,000 French livres. Before the revolution, the exportation from the whole island employed 1070 vessels, navigated by 7936 sea

men.

The population consisted in 1788, according to Marbois, of 27,717 white inhabitants, of whom there were 14,571 males, 4482 females, and 8664 children; of 405,564 negro slaves, of whom there were 174,971 males, 138,800 females, and 91,793 children; and of 21,808 free people of color.

Soon after 1789 a most dreadful reverse took place. At this period, says Mr. Bryan Edwards, in his Historical Survey of the French Colony in St. Domingo, London, 4to. 1797, the mulattoes were in a situation more degrading and wretched, than that of the enslaved negroes in any part of the West Indies. No law allowed the privileges of a white person to any descendant of an African, however remote.'-'The laws, he adds, were dreadfully unequal.' In such a situation it is not to he wondered at, that they should have listened with pleasure to the news of the French revolution, and to the acts of the assembly, which abolished slavery, and established equality of rights. A colonial assembly met at St. Mark, on the 16th of April, 1790, composed of 213 members, which, says Mr. Edwards, fairly and fully represented the inhabitants. They passed acts of indulgence, and rectified gross abuses. But persons interested in the continuance of these abuses were displeased. They counteracted the proceedings of the assembly, and misrepresented their intentions. M. Peynier, the governor, attempted to restore the old despotic system: whereupon eighty-five members of the assembly embarked for France;' as did also M. Peynier, who resigned in November 1790. The pride of power,' adds this writer, 'the rage of reformation, the contentions of party, and the conflict of opposing interests, now produced a tempest, that swept every thing before it.' In October, 1790, James Oge, a free mulatto, who had been at Paris, and who is characterised by Mr. Edwards, as 'an enthusiast for liberty, but mild and humane,' returned from France, and put himself at the

'But

head of the insurgent negroes and people of color; but being defeated, in March 1791, was betrayed by the Spaniards, to whom he had fled for refuge, and, with Mark Chavane his lieutenant, broke alive on the wheel. The eightyfive members of the colonial assembly were arrested in France, and their act of the 12th of October 1790, annulled. In March, 1791, 8000 troops arrived from France; and Mauduit the new governor was murdered by his own soldiers, with circumstances of horrible barbarity. By a decree of the National Assembly, of the 15th of May 1791, people of color were declared eligible to seats in the colonial assembly. And on the 11th of September, a concordat, or truce, was signed between the whites and mulattoes. the operation of this truce,' says Edwards, 'was destroyed by the absurd decree of the national assembly of the 24th of September, repealing the decree of the 15th of May, whereby in the very moment when the justice and necessity of this decree were acknowledged, and its faithful observance promised by the colonial assembly, its repeal was pronounced by the legislative assembly in the mother country. To such repugnancy and absurdity must every government be driven, that attempts to regulate and direct the local concerns of a country 3000 miles distant. Open war in all its horrors was now renewed. All the workings of humanity were absorbed, in the raging and insatiable thirst of revenge, which inflamed each class alike. It was no longer a contest for mere victory, but a diabolical emulation which party could inflict the most abominable cruelties on the other.' On the 23d of August, 1791, Cape François was burnt, and in the space of two months it was computed, that upwards of 2000 white persons perished by these horrible massacres; and that of the mulattoes and negroes not fewer than 10,000 died by famine and the sword, besides several hundreds that suffered by the executioner. Meantime citizens Santhonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud, arrived from France as commissioners, accompanied by 6000 of the national guards; and citizen Galbaud was appointed governor. Their attempts, however, to stop these enormities proved fruitless, though they proclaimed the total abolition of slavery, and a general indemnity.

In October, 1793, a body of British forces under colonel Whitlock, were landed, and took possession of Tiburon, Treves, Jérémie, Leogane, Cape Nicolas Mole, and upwards of ninety miles of the eastern coast with little opposition. But though the loss of the British in these engagements, or rather skirmishes, did not exceed 100 men, yet the victims of disease, within six month; after their arrival, were upwards of 6000, among whem were 150 officers. Leogane was soon after retaken by the negroes, who now amounted to above 100,000, under their general Toussiant l'Ouverture; and Tiburon was taken by the French under general Rigaud. To remedy these disasters, and to supply the Mole with provisions, an expedition was undertaken against the fort of Bombarde, but the reduction of it (which was not accomplished till the 18th of June 1796) cost an immense number of men, and after it was taken, instead of being able to supply

the Mole, it was found necessary to supply it from thence, at a vast expense, and with the loss of many brave troops. These and similar losses, with the deaths of lieutenant colonels Brisbane and Markham, who were killed in 1795, together with the faithlessness of the French emigrants, upon whose suggestions this expedition had been undertaken, at last determined the British commander to surrender Jeremie, Port au Prince, and Cape Nicolas Mole, the only places remaining in the hands of the British, to general Hedonville, by capitulation in August 1798; and on the 1st of October the island was totally evacuated by the British. The name of Port au Prince was at this time changed to Port Republicain; and the Spanish part of the island, having been ceded to the French by treaty was taken possession of, as we have already intimated, by l'Ouverture. We must refer our readers to the life of this chieftain in another part of our work, for the detailed proofs of his very superior talents and character. He applied himself at this period to heal the wounds of this his native country with the greatest success; and such was his popularity, that though the commissioners, who had been sent out by the French directory, remained in the island, and were treated with every external mark of respect, they were, in fact, mere cyphers, destitute of influence, and dependent on Toussaint for support.

Agriculture and commerce were the first objects of his care. Many of the planters were restored to their former estates, but no property in human beings was allowed. The blacks, however, were not permitted to waste their lives in idleness. The planters were obliged to employ their laborers as hired servants, and a third part of the crops was assigned for their remuneration. While ample encouragement was afforded to industry, penalties were at the same time denounced for the punishment of idleness. The beneficial effects of such an administration were soon visible. The wasted colony began to revive; the plantations were again brought into a fertile state; the sugar-works and distilleries were rebuilt; the ports were opened to foreign vessels; and, notwithstanding the ravages of a ten years' war, the exports of St. Domingo were raised from the lowest ebb to one-third of their former amount and value in the most prosperous periods. Population also increased with astonishing rapidity; and while the planters of the neighbouring West-India Islands were continually urging the necessity of annual importations from Africa, to supply the constant diminution among the negroes, in St. Domingo their numbers were considerably augmented, notwithstanding the waste of blood during the troubles and sanguinary conflicts of the ten preceding years. The churches were re-opened, public worship was restored; the elegant arts and amusements of civilised life began to resume their sway; and the combined result of all these causes was a visible and striking improvement in every class of society. In the intercourse of the social hour, all were on a perfect equality; thus presenting a striking contrast to the very strict subordination which prevailed in the army.

The military establishment, when the British forces evacuated the island in 1798, did not exceed 40,000; but in two years it was more than double that number. The soldiers regarded Toussaint as an extraordinary being: his generals trembled before him (Dessalines durst not look him in the face); and every one trembled before his generals. No European army, indeed, was ever subject to a more rigorous discipline, than that which was observed by the troops of Toussaint. Every officer commanded, pistol in hand; and had the power of life and death over the subalterns. 60,000 men were frequently reviewed and exercised together on the plain of the Cape. On these occasions 2000 officers were seen in the field, carrying arms, from the general to the ensign, yet with the utmost attention to rank; without the smallest symptom of the insubordination indulged in the leisure of the hotel. Each general officer had a demi-brigade, which went through the manual exercise with a degree of expertness seldom witnessed; and performed equally well several manœuvres applicable to their method of fighting. At a whistle a whole brigade would run 300 or 400 yards, then, separating, throw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their backs or sides, keeping up a strong fire the whole of the time, till they were recalled: then they would form again, in an instant, into their wonted regularity. This single manœuvre used to be executed with such facility and precision, as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them in bushy and hilly countries. Such complete subordination, such promptitude and dexterity, prevailed the whole time, as would have astonished any European soldier who had the least knowledge of their previous situation. (History of St. Domingo, 1818.)

In these reviews,' says M. de la Croix, Toussaint appeared like an inspired person, and became the fetiche or idol of the blacks who listened to him. In order to make himself better understood, he frequently addressed them in parables, and often made use of the following:In a glass vessel full of grains of black maize, he would mix a few grains of white maize, and say to those who surrounded him :- You are the black maize; the whites, who are desirous of enslaving you, are the white maize.' He would then shake the vessel, and presenting it to their fascinated eyes, exclaim, 'See the white here and there!' in other words, see how few the white are in comparison of yourselves.' The gleam of prosperity, however, which resulted from his wise administration, was of short continuance.

The independence of St. Domingo was proclaimed on the 1st of July, 1801; and, while the inhabitants were indulging the hope of future happiness, a storm was gathering, which burst upon them with accumulated fury. Scarcely was the peace of Amiens concluded, when a formidable armament of twenty-six ships of war was equipped by order of the first consul, with the determination of reducing the revolted colony of St Domingo. On board this fleet were embarked 25,000 chosen troops, amply furnished with all the apparatus of military slaughter. The better to ensure success to the expedition (the

chief command of which was confided to general Le Clerc, the brother-in-law of Buonaparte), recourse was first had to perfidious means. Attempts were made to sow disunion among the free people of St. Domingo. Proclamations and letters, expressed in all the delusive jargon of the republic, were widely circulated. The chiefs of both colors, then in France, and the two sons of Toussaint himself, who had sent them thither for instruction, were pressed into the service of this expedition.

The French forces arrived in January, 1802; yet so little did Toussaint expect to have any enemy to combat, that he had given no orders for resistance in case of attack. When the French squadron was descried, he was making a tour round the eastern part of the island: and, if some of the generals resisted, it was only in consequence of the menaces and hostile manner in which they were summoned to surrender.

After his troops had disembarked, and previously to commencing operations in the interior of the country, and perhaps in the hope that the sight of so formidable a force would inspire the Haytians with terror, Le Clerc thought proper to try what effect these circumstances, the sight of his two sons, and a specious letter from Buonaparte, would produce upon Toussaint. Coisnon, their tutor, who had accompanied them from France, and was one of the chief confidential agents in this expedition, was accordingly deputed on this errand, with instructions to press Toussaint's instant return to the Cape, and to bring back the children in case he should not succeed. When he reached Eunery, Toussaint's country residence, that chief was absent in a distant part of the island, whence he did not return till the second day. The wily Frenchman availed himself of this delay to work upon the feelings of their mother; whose tears, and the solicitations of the children, for a while shook the resolutions of Toussaint. Being at length confirmed in his suspicions of the snare that had been laid for him, by the conduct and language of Coisnon, Toussaint suddenly composed his agitated countenance; and, gently disengaging himself from the embraces of his wife and children, he took their preceptor into another apartment, and gave him this dignified decision:Take back my children; since it must be so, I will be faithful to my brethren and my God.' Unwilling to prolong the painful scene, Toussaint mounted his horse, and rode to the camp. A correspondence was subsequently opened with him by Le Clerc, but it failed to produce Toussaint's submission.

:

Le Clerc now proceeded to hostilities, the minute circumstances of which we have not room to detail. It must therefore suffice to state, that the numbers and discipline of the French troops, added to the military skill of their commanding officers, overpowered all open resistance in the field, so that the blacks, after several obstinate conflicts, and after the burning of several of their principal towns, were finally compelled to retire into the inaccessible fastnesses of the interior, whence they carried on, under their brave chief tain, Toussaint, a desultory, but destructive, warfare against detached parties of their enemies.

This mode of fighting was dictated by the nature of their country. They would frequently place whole lines in ambush, sometimes reaching from one part to another, and sometimes extending to a considerable distance from each wing of a camp. By their admirable discipline, and astonishing celerity, their enemies were often disconcerted, and thrown into disorder; and sometimes, when the French thought themselves sure of a victory, detachments in ambush suddenly made their appearance, and mortified them with a defeat. At length, however, the negroes and cultivators were either subdued by the terror of the French army, or cajoled by the deceitful promises of the French general, who had published in his own name, and in that of the first consul, repeated solemn declarations, that the freedom of all the inhabitants of St. Domingo, of all colors, should be preserved inviolate. But elated by his successes, he now threw aside the mask, and issued an order, expressly restoring to the proprietors or their attorneys, all their ancient authority over the negroes upon their estates. This order opened the eyes of the negro popula tion. Toussaint, descending from his fastnesses with several hundred men, effected a junction with Christophe, who was at the head of three hundred, and marched rapidly to the north of the island. Wherever he came, he summoned the cultivators to arms, multitudes of whom flocked to his standard. His force speedily became formidable: they drove in the enemy's posts in all directions, and surrounded the town of Cape François, within whose walls they had taken refuge. To save that place from being stormed by the infuriated black troops, Le Clerc was obliged to abandon all his conquests in other parts of the island, and hasten by forced marches to its relief. Sensible of his precipitancy in throwing off the mask, he again had recourse to his former acts; and having issued a proclamation couched in the most specious terms, the black chieftains, who were weary of the war, and whose troops began to quit the ranks, agreed to lay down their arms, on condition of a general amnesty, and the preservation of their own rank, and that of their officers.

Scarcely had the French thus succeeded in extending their dominion over the whole island, when they began to put in execution their frightful system of slavery and destruction; and, as a preliminary step towards this object, Le Clerc caused Toussaint to be privately seized, in the dead of the night, together with his family, and embark for France, on board a fast-sailing frigate, about the middle of May, 1802. He was kept a close prisoner on the voyage, and heard of no more by his countrymen. See L'OUVERTURE.

To justify this base act of treachery, Le Clerc accused Toussaint of having intended to excite an insurrection among the working negroes, and to raise them in a mass. The only proof alleged by the French general was two intercepted letters, said to have been written by him to his aidde-camp Fontaine. M. de la Croix (who was an officer in the army of Le Clerc) has printed one of these letters as genuine the manifesto addressed to the sovereigns of Europe by Christophe, on his accession to the throne of Hayti, affirms it

to be a forgery; and such is the opinion of M. de Gastine, who observes further, that_the_pretended letters not only do not prove that Toussaint was preparing to take up arms again, but that every thing concurs to prove that they were forged, otherwise the French would have tried him before a special commission, instead of transporting him 2000 miles from his country, in defiance of the law of nations and of humanity. The base treachery of Le Clerc aroused the black chieftains, and opened the eyes of their countrymen to the designs of the French. Dessalines, Christophe, and Clerveaux, again raised their standards, and were soon found at the head of considerable bodies of troops, ready to renew the struggle for liberty, and determined to succeed or perish in the attempt. During the latter half of the year, 1802, actions were fought with various success. And though the French were continually receiving fresh supplies of men, yet these did not suffice to supply the place of those who perished by the sword and by sickness. Their hospitals were crowded with sick, and disease daily made new ravages. At length Rochambeau, who had succeeded to the chief command on the death of Le Clerc, was compelled by Dessalines to evacuate Cape François, where the remains of the French ariny were surrounded; and, as the war had then recommenced between Great Britain and France, the French gladly surrendered themselves prisoners of war to a British squadron, and were conveyed to this country. We shall not harrow up the feelings of our readers by a recital of the refined cruelty and savage barbarity practised by the French during this residence of twenty-one months on the island of St. Domingo. According to the returns which have been subsequently made to the Haytian Government, more than 16,000 negroes and people of color perished under the various tortures inflicted by them. The barbarities committed by these modern conquerors upon the children of Hayti far exceeded indeed the crimes of the Pizarros, Cortez, and the Bovadillas, those early scourges of the New World.

The French being expelled, at a general meeting of the National Assembly, on the 1st of January, 1804, the independence of the island was again proclaimed; the aboriginal name of Hayti was resumed, and the Haytians pronounced the oath to die free and independent, and never again to submit to any foreign domination whatever. Dessalines was elected governor-gencral for life, which title, a few months afterwards, he exchanged for that of emperor, being crowned by the style of Jacques I. But his reign was of short duration; the cruelties he perpetrated caused a conspiracy to be formed against him; and, two years after his coronation, he was surrounded by the conspirators at his head-quarters, and, struggling to escape, received a wound, which terminated his life. His death produced a division of St. Domingo, and another civil

war.

In the north, Christophe assumed the reins of government, with the modest designation of chief of the government of Hayti; while Pétion, a mulatto, asserted his claim to sovereign

power. For several years these rival chieftains carried on a sanguinary contest, with various success on both sides, until the year 1810, when hostilities were suspended; and, though no formal treaty was concluded, the country long enjoyed the blessings of peace. Christophe was crowned king of Hayti in March 1811, by the title of Henry I.; and Pétion, as president of the republic of Hayti, governed the southern part until 1818, when he died, and was succeeded by general Boyer, whom he was allowed to nominate his successor.

Both governments encouraged agriculture as the basis of their national prosperity, and displayed a laudable solicitude for the instruction of the rising generation. Christophe examined the rival claims of the two systems of mutual instruction practised in England, and gave the preference to that of the British and Foreign School Society. Schools, under the care of English teachers, were established in his dominions at Cape Henry, Sans Souci, Port de Paix, Gonaives, and St. Marc. In the primary schools, the instructions are principally given in English.

In the republican part of the island, a school was established at Port-au-Prince, on the British and Foreign Society's plan, by an English teacher, to whose conduct and ability the president, general Boyer, has borne the most honorable testimony. This school is under the superintendence of a native teacher. A lyceum has likewise been instituted for teaching the higher branches of literature and science.

Christophe, in imitation of other monarchs, created various orders of nobility, together with numerous officers of state, each of whom had a fixed order of precedence, according to the supposed dignity of their office. His dynasty, however, was like his predecessor's, but shortlived. In 1820 a successful conspiracy was formed against him, and finding himself surrounded by an overwhelming force, he committed suicide. See CHRISTOPHE. The president of the republic, Boyer, now advanced upon the kingdom, and succeeded, with but little opposition, in adding it to the republic of Hayti.

The population of the two Haytian governments, in 1820, was computed to be about 501,000, viz. :

Of this number, 261,000 were in the republican part, and 240,000 in the kingdom of Christophe. The introduction of vaccination has greatly facilitated the increase of population.

The revenues of the two governments are supposed to be about 48,000,000 francs; and the expenses of their administration, in 1817, scarcely exceeded 18,000,000 francs, thus leaving a surplus of 15,000,000 at the disposal of each.

The Catholic religion is declared to be that of both divisions of the island; the hierarchy of the northern part consists of an archbishop, three bishops, and a rector in each parish. At Sans Souci there is a royal and parochial church.