318 Notes on Haiti. [SEPT. 



" The females gain by prostitution and robbery what the males pro- 

 cure by robbery alone ; and for this reason, we seldom find either sex 

 deficient in articles of dress, for there is no class of people in the world 

 more vain of their external appearance, or more anxious to adorn their 

 persons." (p. 414.) Such are the consequences of premature emanci- 

 pation ! 



The unhappiest class of slaves agricultural or domestic are those 

 of coloured people. It is too proverbial, " that there is no tyrant so 

 tyrannical as the tyrant who has once been a slave." 



Female owners of this class are more cruel than male; their re- 

 venge is more durable, and their methods of punishing more refined, 

 particularly towards slaves of their own sex ! " Male or female, how- 

 ever, such owners are equally deserving of censure, and generally meet 

 with the proportion they merit." 



Another class of negroes is those who have been seized and liberated 

 from foreign slave ships. These poor creatures are, by .the Creole slaves, 

 called, in derision, "king's niggers," and " Willy- force (Wilberforce) 

 niggers" the proteges of our English philanthropists ! 



The latter are bound as apprentices, to be liberated at the end of 

 seven years ; the " king's niggers" are employed by government as 

 military labourers. Of the present condition of these people, Mr. Bay- 

 ley gives us the following melancholy account : " These beings are 

 not only rude and barbarous, but bad, vicious, and depraved, plunged 

 into the lowest state of moral degradation ; obstinate, idle, stupid, igno- 

 rant, and savage, in fact, hardly above the condition of brutes. It seems 

 impossible to instruct them or to make them work, although they are 

 paid and fed for it ; they will not be led by gentle means, and they will 

 hardly be driven by force ; their feelings appear torpid, and their affec- 

 tions undeveloped; they seem to exist in indifference; they display a 

 morbid selfishness in all their actions, and they look upon all around 

 them, even their best friends, with the dark and gloomy eye of suspicion 

 and distrust !" Such is one of the results of an experiment which has 

 cost this country upwards of seven millions sterling ! urged forward 

 too by a set of people who are now not only pledging themselves to 

 their constituents to abolish negro slavery, and indemnify the planters 

 for the loss of their property, worth, perhaps, one hundred and fifty 

 millions sterling, but also, and in the same breath, binding themselves 

 to reduce taxation ! 



The contempt with which the Creole slaves in general regard these 

 liberated negroes, and the sense they entertain of their own superiority, 

 comfortable situation, and acquirements, is manifested in a variety of 

 manners. One of their songs (for they not only have songs, but 

 actually sing them too aye, and dance quadrilles likewise, whatever 

 Mr. Buxton and others may say to the contrary) is a kind of parody 

 on " I'd be a butterfly," and runs thus 



" Willy-force nigger, he belly da empty, 



He nab de freedom, dat no good for me ; 

 My massa, good man, he gib me plenty, 

 Me no lobe Willy-force better dan he. 

 Me be a nigger boy, 

 Me be a nigger boy. 

 Me happy fellow, den why me want free ?" 



