553 ART. VIII.-1. Essai sur les Causes de la Révolution et des Guerres Civiles de Hayti. Par le Baron de Vastey. 2. Réflexions Politiques. Idem. 3. Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Domingue. Par le Baron Pamphile de La Croix. 4. Almanach Royal d'Hayti, pour l'Année 1817. 5. Almanach National d' Hayti, pour l'Année 1827. 8. Brief Notices of Hayti. By John Candler. 9. Sketches of Hayti. By W. W. Harvey. IN our last glance at the past state of this extraordinary Republic, we left one section of the island endeavouring to accustom itself to the presence and control of a crowned monarch, and to consider itself as a kingdom; nor is it possible to contemplate without surprise the aptitude with which the new sovereign adopted the arbitrary habits of exclusiveness and etiquette which were rendered necessary by the sudden change in his political and social condition. The palaces at Cape François and Sans Souci, in which he took up his abode, were peopled with impromptu officers of the household and extempore ministers of state: pages lounged in the anterooms, and body-guards thronged the galleries. Gold and jewels glittered on all sides; and sonorous titles made the echoes courtly. Grand and privy councils were formed: orders were created: dukes, grand marshals, and excellencies were to be encountered on every staircase; the apartments were floored with marble or polished mahogany; valuable paintings lined the walls; England supplied a state carriage, at an expense to the new monarch of £700, which was drawn by six gray horses; while, in addition to the "household," consisting of 108 individuals, exclusive of medical practitioners of every grade, the Maison Militaire du Roi was on a still more extended and expensive scale. The queen, the prince royal, and the two princesses, had each their separate establishment; and the etiquette of "the presence" was so stringent, that friends were forbidden all token of recognition while in the same apartment with any of the royal family. At the first glance it may appear idle and absurd, that, just as the sovereigns of Europe were beginning to put aside much of the irksomeness of that cumbrous state by which they had hitherto loved to surround themselves, the King of Hayti should hedge himself about with empty forms, and trammel himself with goldlaced and feathered courtiers; but the measure was, in point of fact, by no means so unwise as it may appear; for be it remembered that the Haytians had only recently emancipated themselves from the shackles of slavery; and they consequently forgot, in their admiration of the "pomp, pride, and circumstance" attached to one of their own race, the right of the individual by whom it was assumed. "Although he began his career with an evident desire to improve the condition of the people, and give them a standing among civilized nations, the maxims of his government were unfortunately tyrannical. Wanting a revenue, and not knowing how otherwise to obtain it, and believing also that the people had become too much dissipated by war to labour willingly for wages, he compelled field-labour at the point of the bayonet. By this means, be secured large crops of sugar and rum; and making himself, like Mohammed Ali of Egypt, the principal merchant in his own dominions, he became rich, kept a court, and maintained a standing army." Soured by the perpetual opposition of the adverse factions, Christophe soon lost the buoyancy of spirit by which he had originally been characterized; nor is it wonderful that it should have been so; but it would seem that as he became less sanguine, the natural ferocity of his nature increased. His reign, like that of Dessalines, was one of terror. The citadel of La Ferrière, above Sans Souci, which had been commenced by the French, was finished under his auspices, and rendered one of the strongest fortresses in the world; under circumstances of such revolting barbarity, that humanity shudders at their contemplation. Prisoners of every age and sex were degraded into beasts of burden, and cemented the stones of the frowning edifice with their blood, until death terminated their sufferings. This, the great stronghold of his mimic kingdom, was on one occasion struck by lightning, and reduced to a heap of ruin; the specie and stores which it contained being flung, by the bursting of the powdermagazine, to a considerable distance, in every direction; while out of a garrison of 300 men, a few only escaped to carry the tidings of the awful catastrophe to the Cape. Christophe, however, having already experienced the great utility of this storehouse for his wealth and arms, once more set his human engines into motion, and the formidable fortress was rebuilt. In his admirable and carefully-compiled little volume, Mr. Candler gives an anecdote of the sable monarch, which is a key-stone to this phase of his character. * Candler's Brief Notices, p. 31. "On his return to Sans Souci on one particular occasion, he was informed that, during his absence, the mulatto women of Cape Haytian had offered up prayers in the great church that he might never be permitted to return again to his palace; revenge rankled in his soul-his purpose was immediately taken-he ordered a company of soldiers to make domiciliary visits, and lead out the accused women to summary execution. A dark retired spot, about a mile from the city, was chosen for the massacre; and here, in cold blood, these unhappy victims of cruelty were butchered. Bayonets were plunged into their bosoms, and their dead bodies cast into a deep well; this well is now called The Well of Death, and nobody will drink of its waters." Of the domestic character of Christophe, little can be said to his advantage; for, although in compliance with the "prejudices" of his "Grand Almoner," he was de facto married to the queen, his licentiousness was so great as to procure for his palace a sobriquet too coarse to warrant mention. His redeeming qualities were, however, as conspicuous as his vices. To his unceasing exertions the Haytians are indebted for the present advanced state of education in the island; and Mr. Harvey, (in his Sketches of Hayti,) mentions with enthusiasm the encouragement held out to industry and talent in the several schools six of which are conducted on the Lancasterian system, under the control of English masters, selected at the request of Christophe, by the British and Foreign School Society. Nor did he display less admirable policy in the efforts which he made, and the inducements which he offered, to accomplish the naturalization of foreigners in his dominions. "Besides endeavouring to prevail on negroes and mulattoes from America to enrol themselves among his subjects, Christophe encouraged foreigners of all nations to become naturalized; for which purpose he offered them also all the privileges of Haytian citizens, and promised them every facility in their pursuits."+ Another admirable point of Christophe's policy, was his con stant habit of reminding his subjects, upon every occasion, of their altered condition, and of exciting their national ambition by all the means in his power; while, by his new agrarian regulations, he provided labour and remuneration for all who were desirous to obtain them. The city of Cape François, partially rebuilt under his auspices, and astir with commerce, gave an earnest of what might be anticipated when time and custom should have habituated the citizens to a life of order and industry; but throughout the general population there was necessarily * Brief Notices of Hayti, p. 33. a large amount of ignorance, indolence, and superstition. It was comparatively easy to found schools, and to imbue the youth of the country with industrious and emulative habits; but for the immediate purposes of local government and social reform, the adventurous sovereign could command no better instruments than those which his discrimination enabled him to select from among the mass of excited and ambitious spirits by which he was surrounded-excited and ambitious in proportion to their ignorance of all practical ethics, both moral and social, and thus our astonishment is not that, once possessed of power, he should not have done more, but that with such inefficient coadjutors he should have accomplished so much. The hatred entertained towards France continued unabated throughout his reign; but that the antipathy did not extend to England is equally certain. The extreme liberality-we may even say, profusion-of the British during their occupation of the island, and their scrupulous avoidance of those acts of wanton cruelty by which the French had made themselves so conspicuous, had endeared them to the natives; and their effect is evident, from the testimony of De Vastey; who, himself a man of colour, and violently inimical to the whites, nevertheless admits the benefits which had accrued to Hayti from the conduct of Great Britain: "England is the principal power of Europe which has really taken an interest in our fate. It was she who took the initiative on the other powers, to abolish the treaty, and who laboured to effect the amelioration of the slaves. It is she who, by an order in council, has considered us as neutral and independent, and has expedited, directly and legally, her merchant vessels to Hayti. We should be, therefore, the most ungrateful and the most unjust of men, if we could ever fail in gratitude towards the English people and government." * That these were really the sentiments of his master, needs no further confirmation than the fact, that the shrewd but timeserving secretary of King Henry I. ventured to put them upon paper; but we have a decided and practical proof that such was the case, in the interference of Christophe to prevent the continuance of a clandestine correspondence, which had commenced between some restless spirits within his own dominions, and certain disaffected persons in Jamaica, who were anxious to disturb the peace of that island; when having, with great sagacity, discovered the intrigue, he forthwith arrested all the parties implicated. His reward from the British government for this proof of political integrity, was a permission, as alluded to by De *Réflexions Politiques, p. 39. Vastey, for English merchantmen to dispose of their cargoes in any port of St. Domingo which was not subject to France or Spain; and to reload with the produce of the country. nor Highly as he estimated the advantages of education, Christophe never succeeded, to his death, in accomplishing more penmanship than sufficed for the signature of his own name; did he, in providing the means of education for the boys within his dominions, take equal care of the female children, for whom no schools were organized; and who were left, without an effort, in the same state of moral degradation in which he found them. As years wore on, the better features of Christophe's character were obscured by the avarice and tyranny which were his besetting sins. "He took possession of the best plantations in his own right, and gave others to some of his military comrades, and a few civilians who pleased him, on whom he bestowed the titles of barons, counts and dukes. The châteaux royaux, as his own and the queen's domains were denominated, were worked by soldiers disbanded, or on leave of absence. In the last year of Christophe, twenty of these plantations yielded ten millions of pounds of sugar, equal to 5,000 hogsheads of a ton weight each. One of them, three leagues from the Cape, called the Queen's Delight, yielded 500 hogsheads of superior sugar, of the enormous weight of 25 cwt. each." Sir Home Popham, the English admiral, who visited Christophe several times during his reign, remonstrated firmly with him upon the appalling severities of his rural code; but he could produce no impression upon the black monarch, who persisted in declaring that his people could be governed in no other manner. The natural result of such a system followed. His political rival, Pétion, more judicious in his views, and more temperate in his passions, increased in popularity as he himself lost his hold upon the spirits of the people. To the few foreigners who resided in the country, the rule of the monarch of the North was more agreeable than that of the President of the Republic, for thus was Pétion styled in the southern section of the island. At Cape François every European was held in honour; nor was he passed * Conscious how greatly this ignorance of written characters placed him in the power of those about him, to whom he was in consequence obliged to confide, Christophe was in the habit, after having dictated a letter or ordinance to his secretary, to call in half-a-dozen individuals separately, and to cause the document to be read to him by each, in order to assure himself of its fidelity. It was once remarked to Christophe that the titles of the Duke of Limonade and the Prince of Marmalade had excited great ridicule in France; when he wittily replied, that he was by no means astonished such should be the case in a country possessing the Prince of Peas and the Duke of Broth (Le Prince de Poix and Le Duc de Bouillon). Candler's Brief Notices, p. 31. |