536 
when barely suspected of being likely 
to rebel, forced into vessels, the cap- 
tains of which were instructed to 
throw them overboard, when they 
got out to sea! Other ships were 
fitted up on a new construction, for 
the purpose of their destruction. 
When @ considerable number of 
these unfortunate beings were 
stowed in) the hold, the hatches 
weré closed, and sulphur burned 
below, the fumes of which in a 
short time occasioned suflocation. 
‘Those were acts that the French not 
only committed in the face of the 
world, but openly avowed. They 
evenspoke of such transactions with 
their accustomed levity and gaiety, 
and to the mode of sending the ne- 
groes out to sea to be thus destroy- 
ed, they gave the appellation. of 
deporter en mer, or, to transport 
into the sea. Tortures of the most 
_eruel nature—burning their unlap- 
py victims at a slow fire— 
other act of relentless barbarity, 
were daily and. hourly practised by 
the French armies and government. 
essalines, and cther of the black 
generals, who afterwards broke 
out Into open «insurrection, de- 
elared, and probably with truth, 
hat the French generals had the 
unblushing audacity to propose to 
them, gravely, the extermination 
of the actual population of St, Do- 
miigo, in order to colonize it anew 
with. natives of France! The idea 
of exterminating half a million of 
men, women, and children, ap- 
peared to those professional de- 
strayers as merely a common act 
¥f policy, and they supposed that 
the black generals who had submit- 
-"ted to their arms, could be bribed 
‘by military rank and emolument 
‘fo Zoneur in the hornd scheme. 
and every’ 
AN Nu Nn REGISTE Ry — 1863. 
It will not be matter of surprize 
then, that Dessalines, Christophe, 
and the. other gencrals, who were 
obliged to listen to such a proposal, 
should feel the most inveterate ha- 
-tred against those polished ruffians, 
who, pretending to superior civi- 
lization, were not ashamed to per- 
petrate. and propose acts, that the 
most .untutored savage would shrink 
with horror from. ~ Although the 
indignation of every negro jn ithe 
island must have been aroused, at 
such a proposition, policy obliged 
them for a season to stifle their 
emotion, and conceal their feelings. © 
When, however, the time was come 
which allowed them. to express | 
their sentiments, they appear to 
have been still more aggrieved at 
the hypocritical cant of ‘thin French * 
writers, than even by the cruelty of 
their soldiers. 
These writers certainly possessed 
an admirable art of glossing ever 
the foulest actions, which they 
sometimes described with a gaiety 
that turned the mind from a due 
consideration of their atrocity; and 
again, treated in the language and 
affectation of sentiment “and sym- 
pathy. French gaiety or French 
sentiment, however, little tended 
to assuage the miseries of this un- 
fortunate island, Whether the 
hyana laughed, or the crocodile 
wept, the unhappy victims were 
equally doomed to suffer! Those 
who suryived, had. the addition- 
al affliction of hearing all kind. 
of calumnies thrown out in polish- 
ed language against the living and 
the dead.‘ Ferocious Africans,” 
and ‘¢ horrible barbarians,” were 
the terms constantly applied to the 
individuals of the black population 
of the island, which the French 
generals 
