PEACE IN HAYTI, AND DEATH OF PÉTION.
Christophe had now discovered the too palpable truth, that so far from
his possessing the means to drive his rival from the government of the
South, all his cares and precautions were requisite to maintain the
sovereignty over his own subjects of the North. A train of perpetual
suspicions kept his jealousy ever alive, and vexed by the tortures of
eternal solicitude, his despotic temper grew by the cruelty which had
become its aliment. Together with this perpetual inquietude for the
safety of his power, which made the new throne of Hayti a pillow of
thorns and torture, other considerations had their influence to arrest
the hostilities between the two chiefs of the country. The giant power
of Napoleon had now extended itself over almost all the thrones of
Europe, and with such an infinity of means at his disposal, it was
yearly expected that another armament, proportioned to the overgrown
power of the French Emperor, would be sent to crush the insurgents of
St. Domingo, and restore that island once more to the possession of its
ancient colonists.
Influenced by the fears inspired by these forebodings, the two
governments of Hayti were actuated by a common instinct of
self-preservation to cease from their warfare, and instead of
spending their resources in a civil strife which threatened to become
interminable, to employ themselves in giving permanence to their
existing condition, and prosperity to the country under their control.
The population, which had been employed in the armies of the two
powers, had been taken from their labors upon the soil, and the ravages
of war had consumed and destroyed the scanty growth of the plantations.
Amidst this unproductiveness of agriculture, which spread the miseries
of want and destitution among the inhabitants of both governments, the
occurrence of a maritime war between the United States and England
entirely cut off the supplies which had been drawn from those two
countries, and the evil condition of the Island was complete. In this
sad state of their affairs, both Christophe and Pétion ceased from all
military operations against each other, without previous arrangement or
military truce; and they directed all their efforts to heal the wounds
which had been inflicted by hostile depredation or the neglect of
peaceful employments within their respective territories.
The tax laid by Christophe upon his subjects exceeded in despotism
anything of the kind ever before known in the Island; and even
surpassed the outrageous demands of Dessalines.
Pétion dared not to tax his subjects to supply the wants of his
administration; and for this purpose he was driven to embarrass
commerce by the imposition of enormous duties upon the trade carried
on in his ports. But Christophe had assumed a station which forebade
him to fear his subjects, and he furnished yearly millions to his
treasury by a territorial tax, which poured one-fourth of all the
productions of the kingdom into the royal coffers. Possessed of this
revenue, which placed his finances beyond the contingencies of chance,
the commercial regulations of Christophe were the very opposites of
those enforced within the republic; and the traffic in the ports of the
kingdom was annually augmented by a competition sustained at advantages
so immense.
The army of the monarchy was in all things better furnished and more
respectable than that of the republic. The troops were well clothed
and well armed. They were kept under a discipline so strict that it
knew no mercy and permitted no relaxation. The smallest delinquency was
visited upon the offender with unsparing flagellation or with military
execution. The troops received a merely nominal stipend for their
services, and each soldier was required to gain his subsistence by the
cultivation of a few acres of ground, which were allotted him out of
the national domain; and of this scanty resource a fourth was required
to be delivered into the hands of the king’s officers, as a part of the
royal revenues.
Although Christophe had determined to maintain his power by the
bayonets of the soldiery, he condescended to no measures of unusual
moderation in his conduct toward these supporters of his authority. The
soldiers of the army, as well as the laborers of the plantations, lived
in perpetual dread of the rod of authority which was ever brandished
over their heads; and of the merciless inflictions of authority the
former obtained a more than ordinary share.
Upon common occasions, Christophe assumed little state, showing himself
among his subjects but as a private individual of superior rank. Like
his model, George III., it was his habit to walk the streets of the
capital dressed in plain citizen’s costume, and with no decorations
to designate his rank but a golden star upon his breast. In this
unostentatious manner he was often seen upon the quay, watching the
operations at the custom-house; or in the town, superintending the
laborers engaged in the erection of public edifices. His never-failing
companion upon these occasions was a huge cane, which he exercised
without mercy upon those who were idle in his presence, or whose petty
offences of any kind called for extemporary flagellation.
Christophe was without education, but like his predecessor, Dessalines,
he found a royal road to learning. His knowledge of books was
extensive, as several educated mulattoes retained about his person
under the name of secretaries were employed several hours of each day
in reading to the monarch. He was particularly delighted with history,
of which his knowledge was extensive and accurate; and Frederick the
Great of Prussia was a personage with whom above all others he was
captivated, the name of Sans Souci, his palace, having been borrowed
from Potsdam.
Such sharpness had been communicated to his genius, naturally astute,
by having knowledge thus dispensed to him in daily portions, that
Christophe became at last a shrewd critic upon the works read before
him, and even grew fastidious in the selection of his authors. The
events of that stormy period of European history, as detailed in the
public journals of the time, were listened to with a greedy ear, and
the course of Napoleon’s policy was watched with a keenness which
manifested Christophe’s own interest in the affair.
Christophe, though a pure African, was not a jet black, his complexion
being rather a dusky brown. His person was commanding, slightly
corpulent, and handsome. His address was cold, polished, and graceful.
He possessed a certain air of native dignity which corresponded well
with his high official station, and he exacted great personal deference
from all who approached him. The personal qualities and majestic
bearing of the black king impressed his own characteristics upon his
court. The most formal ceremony was observed upon public occasions,
and no grandee of the realm could safely appear at the court of
his sovereign without the costume and decorations of his rank. The
ceremonial and observances were modelled after the drawing-rooms at St.
James palace, and Christophe was always pleased with the attendance of
whites, particularly if they were titled Englishmen. Many distinguished
foreigners visited the court of the black monarch, attracted thither
by a curiosity to witness the spectacle of an African levée, a scene
which, by established regulation, was held at the palace on the
Thursday of every week.
The company was collected in an ante-chamber which adjoined the
principal hall of the palace, where the novices in courtly life were
suitably drilled and instructed in the minute details of the parts
they were expected to play in the coming pageantry, by two or three
assistants of the grand master of ceremonies, the Baron de Sicard. When
all things were in readiness, both within and without, the doors were
thrown open, and the monarch of Hayti appeared seated upon the throne
in royal costume, with the crown upon his head, and surrounded by a
glittering cortege composed of his ministers, grand almoner, grand
marshal of the palace, chamberlains, and heralds at arms.
Political offences were never left unpunished by Christophe, and
towards delinquents of this kind he never manifested his vengeance
by open violence or a display of personal indignation. Those who had
excited his mistrust were upon some occasions even favored with a
personal visit from the monarch, who studiously concealed his vengeful
purposes under a show of kindness, and the utmost graciousness of
manner. But the arrival of his vengeance was not retarded by this
display of civility. The agents of Christophe generally made their
appearance by night, and the suspected offender was secretly hurried
off to the fate which awaited him. But though Christophe’s anger for
offences not of a political character was violent, it was seldom bloody.
Amidst a torrent of philippics against such persons, his customary
expression, “O! diable,” was a signal to those in attendance to fall
upon the offender and scourge him with canes; and when the punishment
had been made sufficient, the justice of the monarch was satisfied, and
the culprit was restored again to his favor. Sometimes, however, his
indignation in these cases was aroused to the ferocity of a savage not
to be appeased but by the blood of his victim.
We must now turn to the affairs of the republic. Pétion had long been
despondent for the permanence of the republic, and this feeling had by
degrees grown into a settled despair, when he discovered that his long
administration had not succeeded in giving order and civilization to
the idle and barbarous hordes composing the dangerous population of his
government. While the more despotic sway of Christophe maintained the
prosperity of his kingdom, Pétion found that the people of the republic
was becoming every day a more ungovernable rabble, indolent, dissolute,
and wretched. While the coffers of Christophe were overflowing with
millions of treasures wrung by the hard exactions of his tyranny from
the blacks who toiled upon the soil, the finances of the republic
were already in irretrievable confusion, as the productions of that
territory were hardly sufficient for the sustenance of its population.
Amidst these perplexities and embarrassments, Pétion fell sick in the
month of March, 1818, and after a malady which continued but eight
days, he perished of a mind diseased, declaring to his attendants that
he was weary of life.
The announcement that Pétion was no more threw all the foreign
merchants of the republic into consternation. They expected that
an event like this would be the harbinger of another revolution to
overturn all that had been achieved, or of a long and destructive
anarchy, which would completely annihilate the little authority there
yet remained in the republic. Merchandise to the amount of millions
had been sold to the credit of the country, in the doubtful hope that
its government would be durable. Both treasures and blood were at
stake, but the terror of the moment was soon appeased. At the tidings
of Pétion’s illness, the Senate had assembled itself in session, and
this body conferred power upon the expiring president to nominate his
successor; and Pétion, when he foresaw that his death was inevitable,
designated for this purpose General Boyer, then commanding the
arrondissement of Port au Prince.
The funeral ceremonies of the deceased president took place upon the
first of April, and were performed with the most august solemnity.
All the great officers of the army were ordered to their posts, and
required to maintain a ceaseless vigilance for the preservation of
tranquillity. An embargo was laid until the Sunday following upon all
vessels in the harbor of Port au Prince, and several detachments of
troops were ordered to march towards different points of the frontier.
The observance of every precaution which the most anxious solicitude
could suggest for the maintenance of internal peace, and the prevention
of invasion from abroad, was evidence that Pétion had bequeathed his
power to a successor worthy of his choice.
There was a wide difference between Pétion and Christophe; the former
was a republican at heart, the latter, a tyrant by nature. Assuming
no pretensions to personal or official dignity, and totally rejecting
all the ceremonial of a court, it was Pétion’s ambition to maintain
the exterior of a plain republican magistrate. Clad in the white linen
undress of the country, and with a Madras handkerchief tied about his
head, he mixed freely and promiscuously with his fellow-citizens, or
seated himself in the piazza of the government house, accessible to all.
Pétion was subtle, cautious, and designing. He aspired to be the
Washington, as Christophe was deemed the Bonaparte, of Hayti. By
insinuating the doctrines of equality and republicanism, Pétion
succeeded in governing, with but ten thousand mulattoes, a population
of more than two hundred thousand blacks.
The administration of Pétion was mild, and he did all that he could
for the elevation of the people whom he ruled. He was the patron
of education and the arts; and scientific men, for years after his
death, spoke his name with reverence. He was highly respected by the
representatives of foreign powers, and strangers visiting his republic
always mentioned his name in connection with the best cultivated
and the most gentlemanly of the people of Hayti. The people of the
republic, without distinction of color or sect, regarded Pétion’s
death as a great national calamity; and this feeling extended even
into Christophe’s dominion, where the republican president had many
warm friends amongst the blacks as well as the mulattoes. Pétion was
only forty-eight years of age at his death. He was a man of medium
size, handsome, as were nearly all of the men of mixed blood, who took
part in the Haytian war. His manners were of the Parisian school, and
his early military training gave him a carriage of person that added
dignity to his general appearance.