où je fixe mes regards, je vois des débris, des vases, des ustensiles, des figures qui portent dans leurs formes l'empreinte et les traces de l'enfance de l'art; plus loin, dans les lieux écartés et solitaires, dans les cavernes des montagnes inaccessibles, je découvre en frémissant des squelettes, encore tout entiers, des ossemens humains, épars et blanchis par le tems; en arrêtant mes pensées sur ces tristes restes, sur ces débris qui attestent l'existence d'un peuple qui n'est plus, mon cœur s'émeut, je répands des larmes de compassion et d'attendrissement sur le malheureux sort des premiers habitans de cette île! Mille souvenirs déchirans viennent affliger mon cœur, une foule de réflexions absorbent mes pensées, et se succèdent rapidement. Il existait donc ici avant nous des hommes! Ils ne sont plus! Voilà leurs déplorables restes! Ils ont été détruits! Qu'avaient-ils fait pour éprouver un aussi funeste sort?-Ces malheureux n'avaient point d'armes, ils ne pouvaient se défendre; à cette pensée, je saisis les miennes.....O armes précieuses! sans vous, que seraient devenus mon pays, mes compatriotes, mes parens, mes amis? Fils de la montagne, habitans des forêts, chérissez vos armes, ces clefs précieuses, conservatrices de vos droits; ne les abandonnez jamais, transmettez-les à vos enfans avec l'amour de la liberté et de l'indépendance-comme le plus bel héritage que vous puissiez leur léguer.'-Système de Colonisation, par de Vastey, p. 533.

The regular army of King Henry consists of about 25,000 men, of which 4,600 form the royal guard: they are of all arms, exceedingly well, indeed splendidly, dressed and equipped in all respects, and in an excellent state of discipline. According to the testimony of several British officers, no European troops are better trained than the black regiments of Hayti. Among them are about 4,000 blacks from the coast of Africa, formed into separate companies, which bear the name of Royal Dahomeys.' They are placed under officers of tried attachment to the king, and are in fact the national guards, to whom the general police of the country is entrusted; and such, according to Lacroix, is the strictness of this police, that the cultivators are not permitted to leave their houses without a written permission from the commanding officer of the Dahomeys.

The army of the republic is also about 25,000 men, of which 3,600 men compose the president's guard. They are not so well dressed nor disciplined as the king's army, and the greater part are placed in cantonments among the planters. The police of the towns is not so strict in the republic as in the monarchy; the people of colour, who are chiefly in power, are more difficult to bring under subordination than the blacks. They are more loose in their morals, particularly the women, who transact almost all the business of the towns. The bonds of marriage can scarcely be said to exist in the republic. Henry, on the contrary, compels his soldiers to marry, and woe be to him that violates the nuptial tie!

Aware

Aware that much depends on appearances, Henry suffers no one to appear before him who is not decently clothed; and the consequence is that, instead of naked blacks of both sexes strolling about the streets as heretofore, every one now puts on a becoming habit. The republicans are less attentive in this respect; but here too the natural vanity of the blacks has induced them to clothe themselves better than heretofore. Petion himself affected an indifference to dress, but his great officers made as brilliant an appearance as those of Henry. By a singular fate,' says Lacroix, dresses of velvet magnificently embroidered, which not long ago arrayed the senators of the most powerful empire of the world, have found their way to Hayti, and now clothe the senators of this little republic.' "This circumstance,' he adds,' insignificant in itself, is a new example of the nothingness and the decay of human grandeur in the age of revolutions in which we live.'

The population of the two governments, according to Lacroix, consists of 480,000 blacks, 20,000 persons of colour, and 1,000 whites, chiefly Germans, making all together 501,000 souls; of whom 261,000 are republicans, and 240,000 royalists. Each may be considered to consist of three classes. The first embraces all the civil and military officers, who possess a great part of the property of the island. The second class is composed of those who exercise the various mechanical arts, the trades-people of the towns, and the soldiers. The third is composed of the actual labourers of the estates, or the husbandmen, who are mostly blacks. These people are in fact but a little removed from their former condition of slavery, being completely at the mercy and caprice of the civil and military authorities of the two governments.

The finances of each are stated to be so flourishing that, after paying all expenses, there is a surplus of at least fifteen millions of livres, entirely disposable by the king and the president. The system of policy is the same. The king and the president have both declared, that on the first appearance of an enemy on the coast, every town shall disappear, and the whole nation take up arms. The last of the Haytians,' says King Henry in his manifesto,' will breathe out his last sigh sooner than renounce his independence. Free by right, and independent in fact, we will never renounce these blessings; nor witness the subversion of the edifice which we have raised and cemented with our blood. Faithful to our oath, we will rather bury ourselves beneath the ruins of our country than suffer the smallest infringement of our political rights.'

The sentiments of Petion were strictly in unison with these of the king. We have strong suspicions, however, of the integrity of his successor, Boyer; he is lavishly praised by Lacroix as a good

Frenchman,'

Frenchman,' and we perceive that in answer to a proposal made in the chamber of deputies to send a naval armament and blockade the coasts of the rebel chiefs,' the minister replied that negociations of a very delicate nature were in train-but what confirms our suspicions of Boyer being a traitor to the cause is that, to our knowledge, there is at this moment a squadron of frigates prowling among the least frequented of the West India islands, believed to be carrying on a secret correspondence with some part of Hayti—if it related merely to the pecuniary indemnification of the ancient proprietors, which, it has been said, was offered by Henry to the amount of 20,000,000 dollars, provided England would be the guarantee, there could be no cause for concealment. Lacroix too encourages the idea of a naval blockade, and partial disembarkations, to carry destruction to the new and flourishing estates, which he thinks would create internal disturbances, and, by threatening the authority of the chiefs, make them tremble for their own existence. Both governments, however, seem to be prepared for any attempts that may be made on the part of the French; a regular system of defence has been established by fortifying the crests of the hills, and the defiles of the interior; the means of subsisting the troops have been provided for by carrying on cultivation in the vicinity of their strong holds and places of arms; and the fort and citadel of Henry at Sanssouci are said to yield to none of the fortresses of Europe in strength. In this fortress are from three to four hundred brass cannon regularly mounted; and it is seen from the sea towering like another Windsor Castle. France, it is to be hoped, will recollect the fate of General Leclerc's army before she embarks in another expedition hostile to St. Domingo. Of the 35,131 men,' says Lacroix, carried out, more than 25,000 had fallen before Le Clerc into the grave. At his death, 2,200 only were fit to bear arms; about 7,500 sick crowded the hospitals.' 'These wrecks,' he continues, and 20,000 other victims landed on St. Domingo, in the last thirteen months of our agonising dominion, as well as the unfortunate creole population, perished after the death of General Le Clerc in proportions still more deplorable than those which are presented in the following mournful table.' This table gives a total of those who were destroyed by a violent death during the command of General Le Clerc, amounting to 62,481!

Under every point of view, any fresh attempt of the French government to disturb the island would deserve the reprobation of mankind. The progress made by the inhabitants in agriculture and all the arts is quite extraordinary, but more particularly in education and general literature. Of this we have an interesting account given by the Baron de Vastey in his Political Reflexions on certain French Journals

6

Journals concerning Hayti,' printed at the royal printing press at Sans-Souci. Five and twenty years ago,' says this intelligent black,' we were plunged in the most complete ignorance; we had no notion of human society, no idea of happiness, no powerful feeling; our faculties, both physical and moral, were so overwhelmed under the load of slavery, that I myself who am writing this, I thought that the world finished at the spot which bounded my sight; my ideas were so limited that things the most simple were to me incomprehensible, and all my countrymen were as ignorant and even more so than myself, if that were possible.' 'I have known many of us,' he continues, ' who have learned to read and write of themselves without the help of a master; I have known them walking with their books in their hands, inquiring of the passengers and praying them to explain to them the signification of such a character or such a word, and in this manner many, already advanced in years, became able to read and write without the benefit of education.' 'Such men,' he adds, have become notaries, attorneys, advocates, judges, administrators, and have astonished the world by the sagacity of their judgment; others have become painters and sculptors from their own exertions and have astonished strangers by their works; others again have succeeded as architects, mechanics, weavers; in short, others have worked mines of sulphur, fabricated saltpetre and made excellent gunpowder, in mills and establishments similar to those of Europe, with no other guides than books of chemistry and mineralogy.' And yet he continues, the Haytians pretend not to be a manufacturing and commercial people-like the Romans, we go from arms to the plough, and from the plough to arms.' But he contemplates the time when they shall call to their assistance the mechanical arts, the employment of machines, of animals, and of the natural agents, air, fire, and water, and put in practice those means, which,' says he, will render our country the most beautiful, populous, and flourishing, and its inhabitants, heretofore so unfortunate, the happiest people in the world.'

6

Parochial schools have been established on the Madras system, in every part of Henry's dominions, and primary schools at all the principal towns, under the direction of English instructors; in these the English language is taught, and is now read and written by the children of all the functionaries of the government. A royal college has also been established, and annual prizes given to the most distinguished students. Henry has also endowed an academy for music and painting, and built a regular theatre. All these are erected at Sans-Souci, the royal residence, which, we understand, for elegance, and chasteness of design is not inferior to many of the palaces of Europe. Here too he has established va

rious manufactories, and among others that of carriages. Three gaudy ones purchased for him in this country gave him great offence; and he asked if the English considered him as a king of Congo?

The Catholic religion is declared to be that of the state: the hierarchy consists of an archbishop, three bishops, and a rector in each parish. At Sans-Souci there is a royal and parochial church. It was erected by Henry, and is mentioned in the Royal Almanack as a monument of his royal munificence and piety.' The archbishop, whom the pope has hitherto refused to consecrate, has a chapter, a seminary and a college attached to the metropolitan see, all well endowed. He has also three archi-episcopal palaces assigned to him; and the bishops have each a chapter and a seminary, endowed with considerable revenues.

Schools are also established in the republic, over which are placed four or five Frenchmen as professors of languages, mathematics, &c. At Port-au-Prince there is also a college of physicians, and several French medical men are employed to superintend it. The church establishment, like all the rest in the republic, wears a more humble character, being confined to an apostolical prefect with curates under him; but, as we before observed, the duties of religion and morality sit looser on the republicans than the royalists.

Such is the present state of the northern part of Hayti. It presents in truth, an imposing and an awful spectacle; and very firm must be the nerves of that politician who can contemplate it siccis oculis, whether for good or for evil. We do not wish to despond; and it is yet, we fear, too early to triumph: but we cannot conceal from ourselves how much depends upon the personal character of the future rulers of this emancipated race. A third, worthy of Toussaint L'Ouverture and Henry I., the Numa and the Ancus of Hayti, may not arise in immediate succession; and we have yet to learn whether habits of obedience, and a love of order and discipline, will succeed to the influence of individual character, and perpetuate the action of that admirable system of polity which these two wonderful men have constructed and set in motion. Spain yet retains the larger and, we believe, the more fertile part of this noble island; but she retains it as an unproductive desert. We know not with what composure she contemplates the state of things beyond the immense llanos that separate her from a free and active population; but it becomes ourselves not to forget that the blue mountains of Jamaica are visible from St. Domingo. We would not, and indeed cannot, anticipate what is yet in the womb of time; but in the lap of peace and security it may not perhaps be unwise to meditate on an event which sooner or later must surely

come