pitable prison. This melancholy termination to his sufferings took place when he was sixty years of age.

The forcible suppression of Toussaint's government, and his treacherous removal from the island, did not prove a happy stroke of policy; and it would have been preferable for France to have at once established the independence of St. Domingo, than to have entered on the project of resuming it as a dependency on the old terms. Leclerc, with all the force committed to his care by Bonaparte, signally failed in his designs. The contemptuous and cruel manner in which the blacks were generally treated, and the attempts made to restore them as a class to slavery, provoked a wide-spread insurrection. Toussant's old friends and generals, Dessalines, Christophe, Clerveaux, and others, rose in arms. Battle after battle was fought, and all the resources of European military skill were opposed to the furious onsets of the negro masses. All was in vain before October, the negroes, under the command of Dessalines and Christophe, had driven the French out of Fort Dauphin, Port de Paix, and other important positions. In the midst of these calamities, that is, on the 1st of November, 1802, Leclerc died, and Pauline Bonaparte returned to France with his body. Leclerc was succeeded in the command by Rochambeau, a determined enemy of the blacks. Cruelties such as Leclerc shrunk from were now employed to assist the French arms; unoffending negroes were slaughtered; and bloodhounds were imported from Cuba to chase the negro fugitives through the forests. Rochambeau, however, had a person to deal with who was capable of repaying cruelty with cruelty. Dessalines, who had assumed the chief command of the insurgents, was a man who, to great military talents and great personal courage, added a ferocious and sanguinary disposition. Hearing that Rochambeau had ordered 500 blacks to be shot at the Cape, he selected 500 French officers and soldiers from among his prisoners, and had them shot by way of reprisal. To complete the miseries of the French, the mulattoes of the south now joined the insurrection, and the war between France and England having recommenced, the island was blockaded by English ships, and provisions began to fail. In this desperate condition, after demanding assistance from the mother country, which could not be granted, Rochambeau negotiated with the negroes and the English for the evacuation of the island; and towards the end of November, 1803, all the French troops left St. Domingo.

On the departure of the French, Dessalines, Christophe, and the other generals proclaimed the independence of the island "in the name of the blacks and the people of color." At the same time they invited the return of all whites who had taken no part in the war; but, added they, "if any of those who imagined they would restore slavery return hither, they shall meet with nothing but chains and deportation." On the first of January, 1804, at an assembly of the generals and chiefs of the army, the independence of the island was again solemnly declared, and all present bound themselves by an oath to defend it. At the same time, to mark their formal renunciation of all connection with France, it was resolved that the name of the island be

changed from St. Domingo to Hayti, the name given to it by its original Indian inhabitants. Jean Jacques Dessalines was appointed governor-general for life, with the privilege of nominating his successor.

The rule of Dessalines was a sanguinary, but, on the whole, a salutary one. He began his government by a treacherous massacre of nearly all the French who remained in the island trusting to his false promises of protection. All other Europeans, however, except the French, were treated with respect. Dessalines encouraged the importation of Africans into Hayti, saying that since they were torn from their country, it was certainly better that they should be employed to recruit the strength of a rising nation of blacks, than to serve the whites of all countries as slaves. On the 8th of October, 1804, Dessalines exchanged his plain title of governor-general for the more pompous one of emperor. He was solemnly inaugurated under the name of James I., emperor of Hayti; and the ceremony of his coronation was accompanied by the proclamation of a new constitution, the main provisions of which were exceedingly judicious. All Haytian subjects, of whatever color, were to be called blacks, entire religious toleration was decreed, schools were established, public worship encouraged, and measures adopted similar to those which Toussaint had employed for creating and fostering an industrial spirit among the negroes. As a preparation for any future war, the interior of the island was extensively planted with yams, bananas, and other articles of food, and many forts built. in advantageous situations. Under these regulations the island again began. to show symptoms of prosperity. Dessalines was a man in many respects fitted to be the first sovereign of a people rising out of barbarism. Born the slave of a negro mechanic, he was quite illiterate, but had great natural abilities, united to a very ferocious temper. His wife was one of the most beautiful and best educated negro women in Hayti. A pleasant trait of his character is his seeking out his old master after he became emperor, and making him his butler. It was, he said, exactly the situation the old man wished to fill, as it afforded him the means of being always drunk. Dessalines himself drank nothing but water. For two years this negro continued to govern the island; but at length his ferocity provoked his mulatto subjects to form a conspiracy against him, and on the 17th of October, 1806, he was assassinated by the soldiers of Petion, who was his third in command.

On the death of Dessalines, a schism took place in the island. Christophe, who had been second in command, assumed the government of the northern division of the island, the capital of which was Cape François; and Petion, the mulatto general, assumed the government of the southern division, the capital of which was Port-au-Prince. For several years a war was carried on between the two rivals, each endeavoring to depose the other, and become chief of the whole of Hayti; but at length hostilities ceased, and by a tacit agreement, Petion came to be regarded as legitimate governor of the south and west, where the mulattoes were most numerous; and Christophe as legit imate governor in the north, where the population consisted chiefly of blacks Christophe, trained, like Dessalines, in the school of Toussaint L'Ouverture

was a slave born, and an able as well as a benevolent man; but, like most of the negroes who had arrived at his period of life, he had not had the benefit of any systematic education. Petion, on the other hand, had been educated in the military academy of Paris, and was accordingly as accomplished and well-instructed as any European officer. The title with which Petion was invested, was that of president of the republic of Hayti; the southern and western districts preferring the republican form of government. For some time Christophe bore the simple title of chief magistrate, and was in all respects the president of a republic like Petion; but the blacks have always shown a liking for the monarchical form of government; and accordingly, on the 2d of June, 1811, Christophe, by the desire of his subjects, assumed the regal title of Henry I., king of Hayti. The coronation was celebrated in the most gorgeous manner; and at the same time the creation of an aristocracy took place, the first act of the new sovereign being to name four princes, seven dukes, twenty-two counts, thirty barons, and ten knights.

Both parts of the island were well governed, and rapidly advanced in prosperity and civilization. On the restoration of the Bourbons to the French throne, some hope seems to have been entertained in France that it might be possible yet to obtain a footing in the island, and commissioners were sent out to collect information respecting its condition; but the conduct both of Christophe and Petion was so firm, that the impossibility of subverting the inde pendence of Hayti became manifest. The island was therefore left in the undisturbed possession of the blacks and mulattoes. In 1818 Petion died, and was succeeded by General Boyer, a mulatto who had been in France, and had accompanied Leclerc in his expedition. In 1820, Christophe having become involved in differences with his subjects, shot himself; and the two parts of the island were then reünited under the general name of the republic of Hayti, General Boyer being the first president. In the following year, the Spanish portion of the island, which for a long time had been in a languishing condition, voluntarily placed itself under the government of Boyer, who thus became the head of a republic including the entire island of St. Domingo. In 1825, a treaty was concluded between President Boyer and Charles X. of France, by which France acknowledged the independence of Hayti, in considertion of 150 millions of francs (£6,000,000 sterling,) to be paid by the island in five annual instalments, as a compensation for the losses sustained by the French colonists during the revolution. The first instalment was paid in 1836; but as it was found impossible to pay the remainder, the terms of the agreement were changed in 1838, and France consented to accept 60 millions of francs (£2,400,000,) to be liquidated in six instalments before the year 1867

As the engagements which Boyer had entered into with the French inFreased the taxation and bore hard upon the population, an insurrection broke out against his authority in May, 1838. This was suppressed, but was folCowed by repeated collisions between the president and the representative body. In 1842 a revolution broke out and President Boyer was compelled to flee to Jamaica; and in 1844 the inhabitants of the Spanish portion rose, overpow

ered their Haytian oppressors, and formed themselves into a republic, under the name of Santo Domingo. After various individuals had, for a short period, occupied the presidential chair of the Haytian republic, the election fell upon General Soulouque, who, in 1849, made an unsuccessful attempt to subjugate the Dominican republic. In the latter part of the same year, however, he ascended the throne of the Haytian republic, under the title of Emperor Faustin I. The independence of the Dominican republic was virtually recognized by Great Britain, by the appointment of a consul to it, in 1849; and it was formally recognized by a treaty of amity and commerce, ratified September 10, 1850. It has also been recognized by France and Denmark; but the Emperor Faustin I. (Soulouque) still refused to recognize its independence.

The present population of the whole island is estimated at 950,000. The effective force of the Haytian army is estimated at 40,000 men, and that of the navy 15 small vessels and 1000 men. Hayti now possesses an established system of government, an established system of education, a literature, commerce, manufactures, a rich and cultivated class in society. In the short space

of half a century, it has raised itself from the depths and degradation of servitude to the condition of a flourishing and respectable state. Slavery has been eradicated in the new world from the very spot of its origin.

CHAPTER XVII.

AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE AFTER ITS NOMINAL ABOLITION.

State of the slave-trade since its nominal abolition.-Numbers imported and losses on the passage.-Increased horrors of the trade.-Scenes on board a captured slaver in Sierra Leone. The Progresso.-Walsh's description of a slaver in 1829.-The trade in 1820.-The slave-trade in Cuba-officers of government interested in it.-Efforts of Spain insincere.-Slave barracoons near Governor's palace-conduct of the inmates. The Bozals.-Bryan Edwards' description of natives of Gold Coast-their courage and endurance.-Number of slaves landed at Rio in 1838-barracoons at Rio-government tax.-Slave-trade Insurance-Courts of Mixed Commission-their proceedings at Sierra Leone in 1838.-Joint stock slave-trade companies at Rio.-The Cruisers-intercepted letters.-Mortality of the trade.-Abuses of the American flag.-Consul Trist and British commissioners.-Correspondence of American Ministers to Brazil, Mr. Todd, Mr. Proffit, Mr. Wise.-Extracts from Parliamentary papers.-Full list of Conventions and Treaties made by England for suppression of Slave-trade.

To import negroes as slaves from Africa is now illegal, according to the laws

of civilized nations. Those nations which keep up slavery, such as Brazil, Cuba and the United States, are supposed to breed all the slaves they require, within their own territories. But such is not the fact. The slave-trade is not yet suppressed; and the immese labors of philanthropists and statesmen, the struggles and negotiations of half a century, have not been crowned with per

fect success. It is stated, upon good authority, that in 1844, more slaves were carrid away from Africa in ships than in 1744, when the trade was legal and in full vigor. The legal trade, pursued openly, has been changed into a contraband trade, pursued secretly; and the profits, determined from a number of random cases, have averaged from 180 to 200 per cent. Accordingly, a vigorous traffic has been carried on by French, Spanish, Portuguese, British and American crews. Spaniards and Portuguese, however, predominate, and the wages are large. They carry their cargoes to Brazil, Cuba, Porto Rico, &c.; and it has been charged that some are landed secretly in the United States, as there are slaves in the extreme southern States who cannot speak English. But Brazil and Cuba are the principal slave-importing countries. Sir Fowell Buxton, in 1835, calculated that "Brazil imports annually about 80,000, and Cuba about 60,000 slaves. If we add 10,000 for all other places, the annual delivery of negroes into the slave-using countries of America will amount to 150,000." Africa, however, loses far more than America gains. According to his estimates, the whole wastage or tare of the traffic is seven-tenths; that is to say, for every ten negroes whom Africa parts with, America receives only three; the other seven die. This enormous wastage may be divided into three portions the wastage in the journey from the interior of Africa to the coast, the wastage in the passage across the Atlantic, and the wastage in the process of seasoning after landing. The first is estimated at one-half of the original number brought from the interior, the second at one-fourth of the number shipped, and the third at one-fifth of the number landed. In other words, if 400,000 negroes are collected in the interior of Africa, then of these one-half will die before reaching the coast, leaving only 200,000 to be shipped; of these one-fourth will die in the passage across the Atlantic, leaving only 150,000 to be landed; and of these one-fifth will die in the process of seasoning, leaving only 120,000 available for labor in America.

While the trade was legal, the ships designed for carrying slaves were, in a great measure, constructed like other vessels; though, in order to make the cargo as large as possible, the negroes were packed very closely together. The number of negroes which a vessel was allowed to carry was fixed by law. British vessels of 150 tons and under, were not to carry more than five slaves to every three tons of measurement. In 1789, a parliamentary committee engaged in inquiries connected with Sir W. Dolben's bill, found, by actual measurement of a slave ship, that, allowing every man six feet by one foot four inches, every woman five feet by one foot four inches, every boy five feet by one foot two inches, and every girl four feet six inches by one foot, the ship would hold precisely 450 negroes. The actual number carried was 454; and in previous voyages she had carried more. This calculation, illustrated as it was by an engraving, caused an immense sensation at the time, and assisted in mitigating the miseries of the passage. In order to escape the cruisers, all slave ships now are built on the principle of fast sailing. The risk of being captured takes away all inducement, from mere selfish motives, to make the cargo moderate; on the contrary, it is an object now to make the cargo as