ledgment of those laws."- "You propose to me, citizen General, to afford you the means of your securing General Toussaint Louverture. Such conduct on my part would be treasonable and perfidious, and your degrading proposal convinces me of your unconquerable repugnance to believe me susceptible of the least sentiment of delicacy and honour."-" Twelve years, General, have we been fighting for liberty, for those rights, which like yourself, we have gained at the price of our blood, and I have always been averse to believe that the French, after making such great sacrifices to obtain them, would wish to deprive of them a people, who glory in forming a part of the great nation, and in participating in the advantages which they have gained by the revolution."

The blacks, however, disunited and betrayed, yielded at first to General Le Clerc, almost without resistance. Dessalines and Christophe were almost the only chiefs who offered resistance. They were proclaimed out of the pale of the law, and at length overcome by superiority of numbers. Christrophe evacuated Port-au-Prince, firing the town, and effecting a junction with Toussaint Louverture, at the head of about three thousand men. When the perfidy of the French had acquired the possession of Toussaint's person, the war seemed suppressed, but it presently burst forth with renewed energy under the command of Dessalines. The climate favoured the efforts of these heroic blacks, and, before the end of 1805, the French army at St. Domingo ceased to exist. A national assembly met on the 1st Jan. 1804, and restored to the island its primitive name of Hayti. Dessalines was elected Governor-general for life. The island was divided into six military departments, each commanded by a General of division. Christophe was the oldest of Dessalines' officers, and he was put into the government of the department of the Cape. The baneful example of Napoleon's ambition soon spread its influence to St. Domingo, and Dessalines proclaimed himself Emperor, with a right to appoint his successor to the throne. On the 29th July 1805, the second year of their independance, Dessalines appointed Christophe, Commander-in-chief of the army of Hayti, The republican party rose against the usurped government, and, under a man of colour named Pethion, a virtuous citizen and a skilful offieer, commanding the division of Port-au-Prince, they overthrew the usurpation in Oct.

1806, Dessalines perishing during the commotion. It appears that Christophe was no stranger to his being taken off, and on his death the war became fierce between Christophe and Pethion. The province of the north, and the first division of the province of the west, continued in submission to Christophe: while the province of the south, and the second division of that of the west, adhered to the General Pethion. An assembly of deputies was convoked at Port-au-Prince, the majority supported Pethion, but the minority protested against their decision, and at the beginning of 1807, a civil war may be said to have been kindled. A new assembly was convoked at the Cape under the influence of Christophe, which decreed the constitution of the 17th Feb. 1807, nominating Christophe President for life, and Generalissimo of the military and naval forces of the island: At the same time the province of the south-west established the republic of Hayti, with a constitution similar to that of the United States; Pethion being President for four years. In the mean while Christophe, with admirable dexterity, placed his military, naval, fiscal and civil establishments, in the most vigorous and efficient condition, and pushed the war against his rival with much activity, but with little success.

On the 28th March 1811, Christophe declared himself hereditary monarch of Hayti, under the title of Henry I, and he abolished all councils, except an executive council composed of his officers and courtiers. His wife, Maria Louisa, a black woman, married on the 15th July 1763, was styled Queen, and the eldest son was to be called Prince royal of Hayti. From this epoch, the government publications declaimed against demagogues and anarchists; the insignia of royalty, the forms, ceremonies, and most trifling subjects of court etiquette, were regulated by royal ordinances, and, on the 5th April following, appeared an edict creating an hereditary nobility of princes, dukes, counts, barons, and knights, with an allotment of heraldic devices, and armorial bearings. The instability of human affairs and the vanity of human nature were never more powerfully or more ridiculously displayed, than in this sudden assumption of titles, heraldry, and feudal rights, by negroes, ignorant and rude, who, but a few years before had toiled under the caprice, the insolence, the lash of their mercenary and brutal owners. On the 7th of the month (April), Christophe

issued an edict constituting an Archiepiscopal See in the capital of Hayti, and suffragan dioceses in the different cities of the kingdom.

But that, which is more honorable to Christophe, was the Code Henrie, published by him on the 20th Feb. 1812. The laws of his empire are divided into nine heads, and the complexion of the civil code approximates to the similar division of the Code Napoleon. Divorce is prohibited; death and the confiscation of property is enacted; morals and the catholic religion are especially protected; and the institution of a jury is not admitted. The coronation of Christophe took place on the 2d June 1812; the public functionaries from the Spanish part of the island, and the British naval officers on the station, were present at the ceremony, which rivalled in pomp and magnificence the coronation ceremonies of the most luxurious courts of Europe. M. Brelle, Archbishop of Hayti and Duke of Anse, consecrated his Majesty with the formula and religious pomp of the Roman Pontificate. The coronation oath was merely to maintain the then existing order of things, and to resist the re-establishment of white domination. On the senior British officer, drinking Christophe's health at the banquet, the sable monarch rose and drank," to my dear brother George III-may he prove an invincible obstacle to the ambition of Napoleon-and may he always be the constant friend of Hayti."

In 1813, the numerous defections of his subjects presaged his future fall, and the ultimate triumph of the freer, and consequently better principles of his republican rival. But his military genius gave him a temporary advantage over his more moderate and enlightened adversary. The defections of his subjects exasperated the natural ferosity of Christophe's disposition, and stimulated him to acts of great barbarity. On the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, Christophe flattered himself that his conduct and pretensions would be more favourably viewed by Louis, than they had been by Napoleon. But Louis dispatched a commission to St. Domingo with proposals tantamount to requiring a gradual recurrence to the old regime. The negro Monarch received the terms with just indignation. He summoned a council of the nation at his palace of Sans Souci, on the 21st Oct. 1814, and the exposé of the instructions and designs of the French government awakened the utmost enthusiasm in the population. Christophe prepared for

the most determined resistance, and, in his instructions to his officers, he ordered them to provide torches and combustible materials sufficient to burn all the towns-on the landing of an enemy to destroy every species of public or private building, to blow up the bridges, break down all dikes and causeways, to devastate the country, and to retire with the whole population into the mountains, and, finally, to spare neither age nor sex of those enemies who fell into their hands, but to inflict upon them the "most horrible species of punishment." These orders were in unison with the general spirit of the people. One of the French agents was taken with his papers, which were published, and himself examined and exposed to the interrogatories of all the people, but no further injury was permitted to his person. The French King with great meanness subsequently disavowed this embassy, in the Moniteur of the 28th Jan. 1815. Christophe, to secure the people to his interests, now gave greater liberty to the press; he decreed a gratuitous instruction for the people, made efforts to abolish even the French language, hiring numerous English artists and instructors, and ordering all instructions to be conveyed in that language, On the 20th Nov. 1816, he refused to receive the new commissioners sent to Hayti by the King of France, declar ing that he would not treat with France but upon the basis of independence and equality of national rights, and the commissioners, having received similar auswers from Pethion, returned to Europe. The negociations with the French had displayed the personal superiority of Pethion over his rival, who saw the necessity of moderating his tyranny; and, on the 14th July 1819, he abolished an odious law confining the proprietorship of land to general officers. Pethion in the beginning of 1818, had died, and was succeeded by Boyer, whom he had nominated his successor; and this new President commenced his government by conquering from Christophe the country called the Grande-Anse, which he attached to the republic. The just and moderate government of Boyer was so strongly in contrast to the sordid, barbarous, and selfish policy of Christophe, as to detach all his subjects from their allegiance. In Sept. 1820, the garrison of St. Marc were so excited at the indignities which Christophe imposed upon their Colonel, by means of the Governor of the city, that they rose en masse, put the Governor to death, and sent a deputation to

Boyer offering to form a junction with the republic. Boyer hastily assembled an army of fifteen thousand men, and marched to support the insurgents. Christophe was labouring under a paraJytic affection, and, shutting himself up in his fortified palace of Sans Souci, dispatched his army against the insurgents of St, Marc; but on withdrawing these troops from the capital, the people of the metropolis rose in rebellion against him; and on the 6th Oct., the General, Richard Duke of Marmclade, proclaimed to the troops, the abolition of royalty, which was received with enthusiasm by all classes of persons. Christophe's body guard, of about fifteen hundred picked men, still adhered to his interests. He was

borne amongst these troops, addressed them with praises and assurances of reward, and dispatched them under command of his brother-in-law to meet the enemy; but news was soon brought to Christophe, that these household troops had gone over to the repub licans, demanding the deposition of their former sovereign. Upon hearing this, he retired to his chamber in despair and shot himself through the heart, on the 8th Oct. 1820, being fifty-three years of age. His body was ignominiously exposed on the high-ways for several days-his son was massacred, but his widow and two daughters were allowed by Boyer to retire in safety; and they immediately sailed for England, and have since lived in the vicinity of London in a state of genteel independence. All titles, and the attributes of nobility were forthwith abolished by Boyer, who established the republican government throughout the former territories of Christophe; and, finally by his skill and prudence, succeeded in amalgamating the Spanish part of the island with the new republic of the blacks.

Christophe had hoarded 240,000 dollars at Sans Souci, and 46,000,000 of piastres, (10,000,000 sterling) was found at Fort Henri. This sum accords with the boast which the Count Lemonade had officially made, that the Emperor intended to pave and ceil the rotunda of his palace with coin. Christophe was guilty of the most atrocious cruelties; his pecuniary exactions were enormous; he had been munificent to his superior officers, but as to the great body of his people, he had merely substituted the attachment of them as slaves to the soil, instead of the former system of rendering them the property of white individuals. All the lands of the former proprietors he reserved to himself, except a few es

tates with which he had rewarded his Generals. The produce in kind, of his reserved lands, the customs, and other taxes yielded him a considerable revenue. The intellect displayed by Christophe was sufficient to relieve the negro from the charge of being of an inferior nature; but how much more exalted was the character of his rival Pethion, who taking his country-men from the debasement of slavery, converted them into free citizens, established over them an enlightened system of government, and after for ten years executing the supreme magistracy with vigour and jus tice, dies poor, and leaves his country free. Christophe was of Herculean form, and possessed of fortitude, and desperate bravery. In the severest conflicts he would animate his ranks by exhibiting the rage and fury of a tiger. He was vindictive in the extreme, and hesitated at no cruelty which gratified his passions, or was calculated to promote his interests. His mind possessed extraordinary vigour, but he appears to have been incapable of profound thought, or of acquiring comprehensive systems. A certain tact of governing had taught him the necessity of public officers being pure, and that their duties ought to be performed with diligence and dispatch. His establishments were therefore well conducted, He had learnt that manufactures, agriculture, and commerce, are essential to the prosperity of a state; that large pub. lic buildings are necessary to its grandeur; and that morality is essential to its stability. He was therefore always endeavouring to cffect these causes of national prosperity by the most arbitrary, and often mistaken ordinances, forgetting that their only sources were the liberty of the subject, and the security of property. The arena of his exploits was hardly large enough to entitle him to a conspicuous place in the page of history, but, considering his attainment to a throne from a state of the most abject ignorance and slav. ery, considering the barbarous condition of those whom he had to command, and that with such materials, during a period of revolution, he contrived in a few years to found an empire, to build a superb city, and to form both civil and military establishments far surpassing any possessed by the neighbouring colonies of the three commercial nations of Europe, we cannot but allow that his qualities were at least equal to the average of those, who are celebrated as great princes, or as successful warriors.