THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 



Nefo Series. 

 VOL. IV.] AUGUST, 1827. [No. 20. 



SKETCHES OF HAYTI.* 



A MOMENT'S reflection cannot fail to excite astonishment, that the 

 history of modern Hayti has been thus long disregarded. We say disre- 

 garded, because, most unquestionably, if there be one important part of 

 the history of our own time on which the English reader in general is 

 more ignorant than another, it is the transactions which have occurred in 

 .that island during the last thirty years. Barbarities, almost unprece- 

 dented, have been perpetrated ; a new nation has started into existence, 

 even within sight of our own colonies ; has effected a total revolution 

 in the most fertile of the West-India Islands ; and still no record of 

 its progress, acknowledged to be accurate, has yet appeared. W r e con- 

 cur, therefore, in the opinion, that a good account of the internal con- 

 dition of Hayti, written from personal observation, appears to be one of 

 the greatest desiderata in modern geography ;t arid we are glad to find 

 that in the Sketches of Hayti, an attempt has been made to supply some- 

 thing of the deficiency complained of. Before, however, we investigate 

 the merits of Mr. Harvey's volume, it may be worth while to inquire 

 what causes have operated during so long a period to continue the public 

 in comparative ignorance, upon a subject which is highly interesting, both 

 as it affects the great question of the abolition of negro slavery, and the 

 security of our possessions in the West Indies. Has the torpor of the 

 press been occasioned by some insuperable difficulty opposed to the ac- 

 quirement of information ? We apprehend not. Mr. Wilberforce and 

 many other distinguished persons in this country have long been in corres- 

 pondence with natives of Hayti, and English residents there, and have, 

 from time to time, been supplied with a great mass of memoires pour 



* Sketches of Hayti ; from the Expulsion of the French to the Death of Christ ophe. 

 By. H. W. HARVEY, of Queen's College, Cambridge, pp. 416. 8vo. London : Seeley 

 and Son. 1827. 



f Encyclopaedia Metropolitans. 



M.M. New Series VOL. TV. No. 20. Q 



