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ART. VI.-1. Reflexions Politiques sur quelques Ouvrages et Journaux Français concernant Hayti, par M. le Baron de Vastey, Secrétaire du Roi, Chevalier de l'Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint Henry, Précepteur de Son Altesse Royale Monseigneur le Prince Royale d' Hayti &c. A Sans-Souci, de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1817, 8vo. pp. xx. 206.

2. Reflexions sur les Noirs et les Blancs &c. par le Baron de Vastey. Au Cap-Henry, chez P. Roux, Imprimeur du Roi, 1816, 8vo. pp. 112.

3. Acte de l'Indépendance d'Hayti. Au Cap-Henry, 4to. 4. Code Henry. Au Cap-Henry, chez P. Roux, Imprimeur du Roi, 1812, 8vo. pp. 754.

5. Gazette Royale d'Hayti.

6. Des Almanachs Royals d'Hayti, 8vo.

7. Des Ordonnances, Declarations, Proclamations, &c. du Roi d Hayti.

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8. Relation de la Fête de S. M. la Reine d' Hayti avec un Coupl'oeil Politique sur la Situation actuelle du Royaume d'Hayti, Au Cap-Henry, chez P. Roux, Imprimeur du Roi, 1816, 8vo. pp. 76. 9. L'Entrée du Roi en sa Capitale, Opera Vaudeville, par M. le Comte de Rosiers. A Sans-Souci, de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1818, 8vo, pp. 43.

SOME of these works have considerable intrinsic merit; and we have therefore resolved to place them before our readers, not only because they are little, if at all, known in this country, but also because they were written by the descendants of negroes, and by nobles of the late kingdom of Hayti. They will afford us a specimen of the literature of that singular nation, and some means of judging of the intellectual dignity, which a population of blacks may hope to reach, in the most favourable circumstances.

The writings of M. de Vastey, which consist of a chief part of the works at the head of this article and of a few pamphlets of less importance, are very favourable specimens of the native mental force of a Haytian. Self-educated, as are most of his countrymen of any distinction, struggling constantly for the first thirty years of his life against every thing which could damp or stifle a literary ambition, he has nevertheless acquired a respectable style, a correct knowledge of his language, and a store of information of considerable variety and

extent. The manner in which those of his nation, who possess any acquaintance with letters, obtained it, and they are by no means few, is feelingly described by himself in reply to some gross reproach of the late colonists.

The treatment of the slaves in St. Domingo is known to have been of the severest kind, and when the revolution broke out, they were in the most deplorable state that can be conceived; they knew nothing, hoped nothing, their apathy was so profound, their moral and physical faculties were so paralyzed by the weight of slavery. They looked not beyond the mere support of life, the bare vegetative existence of things rooted into the soil. From this abject condition they sprung up at once into the enjoyment of their faculties; an invincible love of freedom instantly transformed them into men; imperious necessity gave them writers to defend their cause, and soldiers who vanquished the best troops in the world and in the brief intervals of repose from defeat and from forced marches, their leading characters snatched a moment for intellectual acquisitions, which afterwards assured to them independence and empire,

"It is but twenty five years since we were plunged in slavery and in the most complete ignorance; we had no idea of civil society, no conception of happiness, not a single strong sensation; our physical and moral faculties were so stupified by the weight of slavery, that I myself, who write this, believed the world ended with the scope of my vision; my thoughts were so confined that the simplest things were above my comprehension; and all my countrymen were as ignorant as myself, and if possible still more ignorant. I have been perfectly well acquainted with many who learned to read and write themselves, without instructers; they went about with books in their hands, interrogated those whom they met, and beseeched them to explain the signification of such a sign or such a word.' Reflex. Pol. p. 92, 93, note.

Out of such a state of things and in such a manner arose M. de Vastey. His colour* gave him some little advantage over pure blacks, during the continuance of the colonial government; but this advantage was brief and slight, and we may consider him as a person, who has escaped from the lowest moral and intellectual degradation, by the force of his own

The Baron de Vastey is a yellow man, either a mulatto or mestizo ; it has not been in our power to ascertain which. New Series, No. 5.

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powers and in opposition to the whole strength of unpropi tious circumstances. If we criticise his writings with thi point in view, we shall be compelled to think him a man o no common talents, nor deserving of mere common applause. Each of his works was composed to repel the reiterated attacks, and expose the still accumulating calumnies of the former planters. The first in order of time, and that with which our readers are probably best acquainted, is particularly designed to maintain the character of blacks, and assert their right to hope for approaching civilization, with passing reference to the revolution; the second to refute several of the most plausible misrepresentations made by foreign journalists and ex-colonial writers with regard to the present situation of the government, rights, and prospects of the kingdom of Hayti. An ardent spirit of patriotism runs through them, and gives them an animation and a zeal, which deeply fix the reader's attention. They teem with expressions of hatred against the late colonists, which, however, we cannot easily reprehend in the quarter from whence they proceed. The vehemence of a once oppressed, but now victorious soldier, the fire of an emancipated slave, the vigorous pride of a regenerate African are all wrought into the style of these pamphlets and amply atone for their few trifling defects in arrangement and composition. In examining the present intellectual character of the blacks and more especially of the people of Hayti, we shall make free use of the materials scattered through these and several other publications of the same nature in our possession, together with what light we have been able to procure from different sources of intelligence.

The slave-trade, which originated in a superstitious notion prevalent in the dark ages, that infidels were not entitled to the privileges of human beings, has been since perpetuated and defended by prejudices equally ridiculous with regard to the minds of the blacks, whom we are desired to believe incapable of elevation, order, and improvement. The generous self-devotion of modern philanthropists has gone far towards eradicating this opinion and abolishing the traffic connected with it; and it is well known to have been our own country and our own southern states that set the example to the world of the abolition of this disastrous traffic. Among the grounds on which it was defended, was an alleged natural inferiority of

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intellect on the part of the blacks; and the difficulty was to point out a nation of this colour that had reached any tolerable degree of civilization. Such an example is given to the world in the case of the people of Hayti. We consider the single fact of their regeneration as decisive in favour of the blacks. Never was a servitude more complete, never was abasement more hopeless, never was ignorance more deplorable, than that of the slaves of Saint Domingo. France, in the madness of the revolution, proclaimed liberty through the colony, and at once conferred political rights on these miserable beings; but shortly repenting of her generosity, she tried to reduce them again to slavery, by force or fraud; and when she found they had not tasted the sweets of freedom in vain, she commenced that series of barbarities, which surpassed even her own reign of terror, and which will never be forgotten as the revolution of Saint Domingo. But the party prevailed, which deserved to prevail; for once poetic justice was done in this grand drama of life; the blacks fought on, through reverses and sufferings unrivalled, till they became independent, and not a single one of their old oppressors remained on the soil of Hayti. What revolution has the world ever beheld, that was comparable to this in the credit which it does to the aptitude and perseverance of its leaders? Other revolutions were conducted by men who were free, if not independent; who had before enjoyed the rights of men and knew how to prize them; who were comparatively speaking enlightened and civilized. But this was of a nature far more wonderful: its chiefs were just loosed from slavery; they were utterly destitute of any species of knowledge, which was to fit them to be soldiers, politicians or even subjects; their arms were at first nothing but stakes or wooden dirks, or iron hoops rudely fashioned into sabres; in their early battles they precipitated themselves in disorganized crowds upon the cannon of their enemies ;* and they were opposed to the most acute and warlike nation of modern times, acting under every excitement of interest, pride, indignation and despair. Surely no more convincing argument in proof of the capacity of blacks could be required, than their achievement of such a revolution.

* They fought with heroical coolness and courage. Their blindness was such, that many of them dared to thrust their arms into the cannons, crying out to their comrades, vẹni, veni, moi tins ben li, &c. Malenfant, Des Colonies, p. 18.

A few extracts from the Baron de Vastey will show the sufferings of his countrymen to have been without any thing similar in revolutionary annals, and will justify us in the severe terms in which we have alluded to the colonists.

"We have seen our fellow-citizens, friends and relations, without distinction of age or sex, dragged to execution, some to be burnt at the stake, others to be exposed to birds of prey on gib bets; some thrown to the dogs to be devoured, others more fortunate perishing at the point of the dagger or bayonet. In places which the whites evacuated, thousands of the Haytians, who had fought in their ranks, were so credulous as to trust in their generosity; unwilling to abandon the whites in the extremity of their distress, they followed them to the vessels in which they embarked, taking with them their wives and children and the little property they had been able to save from pillage; but scarcely were they on board when they were loaded with chains and precipitated into the hold of the ship, there to suffer the most dreadful torments. Every night hundreds of them were brought on deck, bound together with cords and enclosed in large sacks with their babes, in which they were thrown into the sea after being stabbed through the sacks, as it otherwise some deity might interpose for their succor and preservation. At other times republican marriages were made like those of La Vendée, a man and woman being fastened together with chain-shot about their necks and thus thrown into the sea amid acclamations and cries of joy. Hundreds shut up in the holds of ships were stifled to death with burning sulphur. Day came to throw light upon the crimes of the night, and our shores, covered with the corpses of our friends, testified against the barbarity of the whites, and foretold us our own terrible destiny.'

After describing a scene, that he had witnessed, in which some of his countrymen were burned at the stake with circumstances of aggravated cruelty, he proceeds to make mention of a horrible species of torture employed by the ex-colonists, namely, delivering up their captives to be devoured alive by blood-hounds.

The first time that men were devoured by dogs* was at the Cape in the convent of nuns and even in the house of general Boyer! Afterwards the theatre of this scene of horrors was

* A pack of blood-hounds was procured for this purpose from Cuba. Quarterly Rev xxi, 448. The blacks were hunted down with these dogs, as the native inhabitants of the Antilles were by the Spaniards.

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