192 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[FEB. 



Under Boyer, the whole island, for die 

 first time, has come under one government ; 

 and over the whole has the severity of the 

 regulations for labour, enforced by Tous- 

 saint, Dessalines, and Christophe, been re- 

 laxed, or rather the regulations themselves 

 abandoned ; and the effect has been a gra- 

 dual retrograding, public and private so 

 much so, that now, at last, even Boyer has 

 been compelled to have recourse again to the 

 Code Rural, by which every man is forced to 

 labour, and idleness severely punished* This 

 is the letter and object of the code ; but the 

 indolent and imbecile character of Boyer 

 himself gives little promise of its provisions 

 being carried into effective execution. But 

 here is the real cause of the failure. Boyer is a 

 mulatto the chief agents of his government 

 are mulatto the government, in short, is 

 mulatto ; and the spirit of the mulatto is as 

 hostile to the negro as that of the white. 

 Nothing which is likely to improve the con- 

 dition of the negro will be promoted. Edu- 

 cation accordingly is discouraged ; and if 

 the enforcement of labour again appears, as 

 it will, to improve the condition of the be- 

 sotted negro, the enforcement will be again 

 withdrawn. Boyer, too, seems weary of 

 his position. He is the author of the con- 

 tract with France, by which, after a real 

 independence of twenty years, the purchase 

 of independence is made at an expense of 

 six millions sterling a sum which never 

 can be paid but which is probably leading 

 to the reduction of the whole island under 

 French dominion again. The produce of 

 the whole country amounts not to one-half 

 what it did under Toussaint, though he oc- 

 cupied only half of it. The population, 

 which has amounted to nearly a million, 

 is now not supposed to reach 700,000; 

 and since Christophe's death all has dete- 

 riorated. 



The brilliant accounts we have occasion- 

 ally had of negro attainments, the author 

 entirely discredits and indeed they were, 

 on the face of them, little worthy of credit. 



" See the grown children" somebody 

 had called the negroes so "planning the 

 construction of impregnable fortresses, build- 

 ing palaces, calculating almanacks, possess- 

 ing black wrkers, poets, and ministers of 

 state." This was the language of the 

 Baron de Vastey himself a negro, and a 

 warm advocate, says Mr. F., for the genius 

 and talents of his countrymen. " But 

 really," he adds and we suppose truly 

 enough " I have not been able to discover 

 where these impregnable fortresses, planned 

 by Haytians, are to be found. I believe 

 that when the Baron wrote there was not a 

 single fortification erected from the design 

 of a Haytkn ; they were the old works of 

 the French repaired, where such repairs were 

 wanted. The citadel Henry, or Fort Fer- 

 rier, is the only new fortress of which I have 

 heard, and that was not constructed from 

 the design of a Haytian, but from the plan 

 of a British officcisy from whom it takes one 



of its appellations, Ferrier. The same thing 

 is true with respect to the palace Sans Souci. 

 The only merit to which the Haytians can 

 lay claim, in the erection of these works, is 

 the preparing the materials, and the labour 

 of carrying them to the spot on which they 

 are built ; for the whole cf those materials 

 which could not be obtained on the spot 

 were carried from other parts on the shoul- 

 ders of the people ; and Christophe com- 

 pelled blacks and browns, young and old, 

 boys and girls, of all ages and denominations 

 of citizens, to perform that labour, which 

 ought to have been performed by brutes' 

 Young and interesting girls were to be seen 

 carrying bricks or boards up the mountains, 

 almost ready to sink under their loads, fol- 

 lowed by soldiers with fixed bayonets or the 

 sabre ; but on this subject both De Vastey 

 and Prince Larnders are silent. As to 

 writers and poets, I have only heard of 

 those now mentioned, De Vastey and Larn- 

 ders, except Chandlette, Count de Roziers, 

 who, I imagine, being something of poet 

 laureate to the king, or governor-general of 

 the play-house, prepared pieces for repre- 

 sentation, teeming with the most fulsome 

 compliments to the monarch's virtues, and 

 wrote sonnets to the peerless beauties of the 

 queen and the princesses. Here, I believe," 

 continues Mr. F., " ends the catalogue of 

 architects, poets, and writers of Hayti ; and 

 unless the Baron de Vastey can adduce other 

 proofs of Haytian capacities, I must be ex- 

 cused if I still remain sceptical. I must 

 wait to see what time and a further inter- 

 course with die world will accomplish ; at 

 present, but little of that improvement mani- 

 fests itself, which has been the subject of so 

 much praise and admiration." 



His accounts of the senate, and commons, 

 and judges are deplorable ; titles under the 

 republican government are all abolished. 

 Of the twenty-six senators, four or five, he 

 says, could not write their names, not even 

 their initials ; and of the seventy -two repre- 

 sentatives, twenty-six were in the same im- 

 potent state. The judges are not so much 

 distinguished for ignorance though that is 

 bad enough as for corruption. One of 

 them the chief judge of the Court of Cas- 

 sation is a black, and a small shopkeeper ; 

 and all the judges of this superior court are 

 engaged in trades of some kind or other. 

 M. Dieu Donny, chief judge of the lower 

 courts, is spoken of as possessing some little 

 knowledge, and some little honesty but 

 he is a man of colour,' and educated in 

 Europe. 



Hope Leslie. 3 vols. I2mo. ; 1827 



Whatever hostility, latent or open, exists 

 between England and America relative to 

 political rights, or commercial rivalry, or 

 constitutional superiority, no grudgingness 

 or envy appears in literary matters. Let 

 America produce what is excellent, and w6 

 welcome it as cordially, with us thorough a 

 good, will and readiness, as if it were the 



