peror; a man whose untiring energy, headlong bravery, unsurpassed audacity, and native genius made him to be feared by both blacks and whites, and whose misdeeds have furnished to the moralists more room for criticism than any other man whose life was passed in the West Indies.

Yet this "monster," with all his faults, did much for the redemption of his race from slavery. Had Dessalines been in the position of Touissant, he would never have been captured and transported to Europe. He who reads the history of the St. Domingo struggle without prejudice, and will carefully examine the condition of parties, see the efforts made by the expatriated planters to regain possession of the Island, and view impartially the cruel and exterminating war upon the blacks, as carried on by Le Clerc and Rochambeau, cannot feel like throwing the mantle of charity over some of the acts of Jean Jacques Dessalines. After the death of the emperor, the victorious mulattoes followed up their success by attacking the partisans of Dessalines, and four days were expended in destroying them. Upon the 21st there appeared a proclamation, portraying the crimes of the fallen emperor, and announcing that the country had been delivered of a tyrant. A provisional government was then constituted, to continue until time could be afforded for the formation of a new constitution, and General Christophe was proclaimed the provisional head of the State.

CHAPTER XVII.

WAR BETWEEN THE BLACKS AND MULATTOES OF HAYTI.

THE ambitious and haughty mulattoes had long been dissatisfied with the obscure condition into which they had been. thrown by the reign of Dessalines; and at the death of that ruler, they determined to put forward their claim. Therefore, while Christophe was absent from the capital, the mulattoes called a convention, framed a constitution, organized a republic, and elected for their president, Alexandre Pétion.

This man was a quadroon, the successor of Rigaud and Clervaux to the confidence of the mulattoes. He had been educated at the military school at Paris; was of refined manners, and had ever been characterized for his mildness of temper and the insinuating grace of his address. He was a skilful engineer, and at the time of his elevation to power he passed for the most scientific officer and the most erudite individual among the people of Hayti. Attached to the fortunes of Rigaud, Pétion had acted as his lieutenant in the war against Touissant, and had accompanied that chief to France. Here he remained until the departure of the expedition under Le Clerc, when he embarked in that

disastrous enterprise, to employ his talents in restoring his country to the dominion of France. Pétion joined Dessalines, Christophe, and Clervaux when they revolted and turned against the French, and aided in gaining the final independence of the Island. He was commanding a battalion of mulattoes, under the government of Dessalines, at the close of the empire.

Christophe, therefore, as soon as he heard that he had a rival in Pétion, rallied his forces, and started for Port au Prince, to meet his enemy, and obtain by conquest what had been refused him by right of succession; and, as he thought, of merit. Pétion was already in the field; the two armies met, and a battle was fought.

In this contest, the impetuosity of Christophe's attack was more than a match for the skill and science of Pétion; and the new president was defeated in his first enterprise against the enemy of his government. The ranks of Pétion were soon thrown into irretrievable confusion, and in a few minutes they were driven from the field-Pétion himself being hotly pursued in his flight, finding it necessary, in order for the preservation of his life, to exchange his decorations for the garb of a farmer, whom he encountered on his way, and to bury himself up to the neck in a marsh until his fierce pursuers had disappeared.

After this signal success, Christophe pressed forward to Port au Prince, and laid siege to that town, in the hope of an easy triumph over his rival. But Pétion was now in his appropriate sphere of action, and Christophe discovered that in contending against an experienced engineer in a fortified town, success was of more difficult attainment than while encountering

the same cnemy in the open field, where his science could not be brought into action. Christophe could make no impression on the town; and feeling ill assured of the steadfastness of his own proper government at Cape François, he withdrew his forces from the investment of Port au Prince, resolved to establish in the North a separate government of his own, and to defer to some more favorable opportunity the attempt to subdue his rival at Port au Prince.

Thus placing themselves in hostile array against each other, the two chiefs of Hayti employed themselves in strengthening and establishing their respective governments, and in attempts to gain over the different parts of the Island to an acknowledgment of their authority. Christophe assumed the title of President of the State, and Pétion, of the Republic; and the inhabitants of the country conferred their allegiance according to the opinions of their chiefs, or the places of their residence.

The successes of Christophe in his late campaign against his rival at Port au Prince, had encouraged him with the hope of obtaining a complete conquest over him when he had strengthened and confirmed his power over the blacks of the North. The greater part of this province had already declared for him, and refused to acknowledge the new president at Port au Prince, who had been taken from among the mulattoes of the South. In this state of public feeling, Christophe proceeded to issue a series of proclamations and addresses to the people and the army, encouraging them to hope for a better era about to arise under his auspices, in which the evils of foreign invasion and the disaster of intestine disturbance were

to cease, and the wounds of the country to be healed by the restoration of peace and tranquillity. He manifested a desire to encourage the prosperity of commerce and agriculture; and by thus fostering individual enterprise, to ensure the happiness of the people under his rule. To support the credit of his government among the commercial nations abroad, he dispatched a manifesto to each of them, with a design to remove the distrust which had begun to be entertained in the mercantile world of the now governments of Hayti.

It was announced in these dispatches that the storehouses and magazines of the Island were crowded and overflowing with the rich productions of the Antilles, awaiting the arrival of foreign vessels to exchange for them the produce and fabrics of other lands; that the vexatious regulations and ignorant prohibitions of his predecessor no longer existed to interfere with the commercial prosperity of the Island; and that protection and encouragement would be granted to commercial factors from abroad, who should come to reside in the ports of the country.

Christophe felt that his assumption of power was but a usurpation, and that so long as his government remained in operation without the formal sanction of the people, his rival at Port au Prince possessed immense advantages over him, inasmuch as he had been made the constituted head of the country by an observance of the forms of the constitution. To remedy this palpable defect, which weakened his authority, he resolved to frame another constitution, which would confirm him in the power he had usurped, and furnish him with a legal excuse for maintaining his present