146 Navigation and Commerce. 
desired that our culture of tobacco, rice, and sugar, should he 
sufficiently advanced in order to exclude from the list of our 
consumptions the productions of the Sou&iern States of the 
Union. This reduction, however, would hardly impede our 
commerce with the United States, whose growth in the arts and 
manufactures increases every day. What our exchanges would 
lose on the one side, they would gain on the other; but should 
our economical principles suffer by it, we would be happy to 
see our relations, even indirect, with the South, disappear from 
our commercial tables. We have one regret to express in re¬ 
lation to our navigation, —it is, that our national flag has dis¬ 
appeared from our intercourse with the United States. In 1853, 
we had twenty entries under the Haytian flag; to-day we have 
not one. This result is due to the unskilfulness of the Empire 
which suppressed the additional duty of ten per cent, on the 
flags of all States that had not representatives at our Capitol. 
This was not only a disregard of our own interest, but it was a 
sacrifice, also, of eveiy sentiment of national dignity to admit 
an American agent here, when a reciprocal right was refused to 
us at Washington.” * 
The next article relates to the commerce of Port-au-Prince 
alone, for the first six months of 1860 : 
“We are enabled to offer our readers a few remarks on the 
* Hayti was the first country, after the United States, that successfully threw 
off European allegiance. Yet, up to the present time, the independence of 
Hayti has never been acknowledged by the great American Republic, whose 
example she was the first to imitate; although France, the mother country, 
England, Spain, Prussia, Belgium, and all Christendom, have done so,—many 
of them having ambassadors and consuls in Port-au-Prince, and receiving at 
their Courts her accredited representatives. We have recognized the indepen¬ 
dence of every unwashed and ragged-trousered Republic of Central and 
South America; even, among the number, petty tribes whose kings, as a 
royal costume, wear a shirt collar, a cigar, and a pair of spurs. We have 
expensive embassies in a dozen countries, whose united commerce with us 
docs not amount to one half of our annual commerce with Hayti. Soulouque, 
with imbecile indifference, permitted commercial agents, instead of consuls, to 
be established in the open ports of his Empire, on condition only that similar 
agents, on his part, 'citizens of the United States , should be appointed in Bos¬ 
ton, New York, and Philadelphia. He abolished, also, the increased duty 
mentioned in the text. No change has yet been made by the Government of 
the Republic, but should the result of the approaching Presidential election 
show that our policy toward Hayti is to be continued, energetic measures, it is 
said, Will at once be taken to curtail and transfer to the more courteous pro¬ 
vinces North of us, the large and increasing commerce that we now carry on 
with her. 
