*

which was speedily quelled by the energy of General Lazarre, the commandant, who, having succeeded in obtaining a hearing of the rebels, ultimately induced them to return to their duty, as citizens and patriots. Eight of the ringleaders were arrested, four of whom were tried and condemned to death; after which their followers dispersed; and armed patrols having been distributed through the adjacent country, quiet and safety were restored. On the 31st of the same month a more formidable revolt took place in the South, which compelled active measures on the part of the government. The national guard of Cayes, of Torbeck, of Cavaillon, and of Port-Salut, with the 12th regiment, and one field-piece, were arrayed against the malcontents. On the 1st of August a troop of cavalry attacked their mounted force, which they dispersed, but not until they had killed two men, and wounded several. The appearance of the advancing troops caused the rebels to raise their camp, and to retreat to RavineSeche, whither they were pursued; and on the 3rd, an engagement took place upon the heights above the Leblanc estate, where they were utterly routed and put to flight; after losing a great number of men, both killed and wounded, as well as prisoners. Ultimately, the final demonstration of disaffection towards the new government was made at Fort Alexandre, above Port-au-Prince, of which a certain Colonel Dalzon and a few other malcontents took possession, in September last; but whence they were soon dislodged by General Hérard, who no sooner ascertained the fact, than he left the Government-house, attended by his staff and a battalion of the 5th regiment,-upon which the more enterprising than gallant colonel attempted to escape, but was shot dead by one of his own men. It was midnight when General Hérard was apprised of the revolt, and a quarter of an hour afterwards all was quiet, and order re-established.

This was the last expiring throe of civil discord. Throughout his tour of the South, the Liberator Hérard had been received with enthusiasm and devotion: and well had he earned his welcome; for it is cheering to remark that, even amid their great and natural anxiety to ameliorate, extend, and consolidate their commercial relations, and to encourage the interests of agriculture, the new government did not confine their attention wholly to these points, important as they were but immediately commenced upon religious and educational reforms, which cannot fail to create a great moral reaction throughout the country. A Protestant church has been already built by public subscription, to

*The same brave man who, with Rivière Hérard, defeated the government general, Cazeau; and who, together, have been justly denominated "the two pillars of the State."

which the ministers are appointed, and where the services are to be performed in both the English and French languages. A decree has also been passed for the establishment of six free normal schools, at the expense of the municipality; to be succeeded hereafter by others, as the progress of national education may require; the sexes to be in every case separated, and the system to be Lancastrian, with one day in each week appropriated to the instruction of adults; and measures have moreover been taken to prevent that flagrant desecration of the Sabbath which formed so prominent a feature of Boyer's administration.

On the 9th of January, 1844, the Haytians consummated their political liberation by promoting to the presidential chair General Charles Rivière Hérard, the leader of the Revolution; who was elected with great demonstrations of rejoicing by the almost unanimous votes of his fellow-citizens. The watchwords of the nation should henceforth be "Unity, Order, and Progression." They have won their liberty nobly, and have now only to prove themselves worthy of it. Another intestine struggle must prove their ruin; and we would fain believe that they have been taught this fact by the experience of the past. Hayti has, however, still one great difficulty against which to struggle, and we cannot close our article without a brief allusion to the subject. Her stumbling-block is the indemnity to France; which, crippled as she is by recent internal faction, and the depreciated value of her home produce, is a burthen greatly overtaxing her strength. We cannot resist the hope that France will take this matter into consideration-for France can afford to be generous-and not suffer herself to be cozened into a want of justice by the quillhardy sarcasms of a venal press.* All idea of re-conquering Hayti must long have abandoned her. The recent freight of the Aube must have satisfied the vapouring politician of La Presse that the "two negroes," Rivière Hérard and his brother, did not condescend to shelter themselves under the false plea that "Boyer had carried off the chest ;" but that, under every disadvantage and every difficulty, they satisfied the claim that was made upon them.

And now we must be permitted succinctly to investigate this claim. Hayti, after years of slavery and suffering, succeeded, at the price of a vast sacrifice of life, in liberating herself from French domination-she substituted blood for tears, and weapons for chains. She fought bravely and successfully; and the vete

* We cannot permit ourselves to do more than allude to a hyper-absurd pamphlet, published last year, and written by a M. Etienne Mouttet, one of the editors of the Courrier d'Outremer; whose political judgment will be as well understood by his prophecy of O'Connell's forcing Repeal from the British Government, as by his speculation that Hayti should be again reduced to slavery by that of France.

ran troops of the empire were compelled to yield before her energy. What, however, had they left to their conquerors? land devastated by warfare, and exhausted by pillage and conflagration; a demoralised population; towns in ruin; and famine in perspective. She had no navy with which to defend her insulated shores; no army with which to protect her non-belligerent inhabitants, save the weakened and toil-worn remnant of that which had already shed its best blood in her defence. She was prostrate and almost powerless. Even the European merchants who had ventured to remain in the island, amid the anarchy and confusion, were not spared by the French generals before their retreat; for when the tiger Rochambeau levied upon the city of Cayes a forced loan of 800,000fr., he laid a tax of 33,000fr. each upon eight of these neutral inhabitants; and when one of the number (Fédon, a countryman of his own) declared his inability to meet the demand, he was shot in front of the palace! The French had commenced their campaign in Hayti by drowning 1,200 of the natives. They had found their country fertile and flourishing, and they left it a desart. They intruded themselves unasked, at first a mere band of freebooters; and they departed only when compelled to evacuate the territory by the resolute heroism of its sons. The boasted phalanx of Egypt was overthrown, and Hayti was free.

Upon these circumstances France based her claim. Many of her merchants holding property in the island were denuded of their possessions by the course of events. She had assisted one faction in opposing the other. She had so long had her foot upon the soil, that she considered it a legal tenure, as she had on previous occasions made might prove law; and thus, after many ineffectual attempts at a more satisfactory arrangement, she consented to waive her claims upon the country which had just flung off her yoke, upon condition that the ports should be opened to her merchantmen at reduced duties; and that the French division of the island should pay over to her own treasury, by five equal instalments, the sum of 150,000,000fr. as indemnification money to the old colonists!* But we cannot do better than let M. Schoelcher speak for us upon this subject :—

* This was subsequently reduced by the last treaty, of February, 1838, to 60,000,000fr., payable in 30 years, in annual instalments of an average of 2,000,000fr.; and which has duly been paid up to the present day. The Haytians rejected all overtures of reduced duties in favour of France, and refused to accept their proposition to hold military possession of the Môle St. Nicholas; two points which should be duly appreciated by the British Government-the amount of the imports from England embracing about five-eighths of the whole trade of the country. The Haytians might, in a moment of weakness, pressed as they were by dissensions from within, and the demands of the French from without, with a French squadron in their roads, have yielded to these importunities, and thus rid themselves of the indemnity altogether; but they felt that their principles forbade the measure.

"An indemnity! But for what, after all? But for what, after all? When the French were obliged to quit the island, it was utterly destroyed by war; the estates were laid waste, the houses pulled down, the sugar-presses destroyed, the public buildings sacked, and the finest edifices reduced to heaps of ruin. The spades had been turned into exterminating hatchets; the sugar-plantations had become fields of bones! In this laborious gestation, whence was born the Haytian people, all was overthrown; and wherever balls and bullets had failed, the rage of the people had finished the destruction of the last monuments of their past disgrace there remained in fact nothing but the soil; and had the re-conquest of Hayti been possible, the colonists could have recovered nothing but the soil! The victorious slaves, in dividing among themselves these red and smoking ruins, appropriated what they had gained; and Dessalines, proclaiming the act of independence, might justly say, 'All property which may have hitherto belonged to a white Frenchman, is incontestably and by right confiscated to the profit of the state.' Did not Jehovah command the Hebrews, fleeing from the land of slavery, to carry away with them the golden vases of their masters ?" *

It is not yet too late for France to consider this: and, we repeat, that she can afford to do it. She can afford at once to be generous and just. With an exhausted treasury, and a depreciated produce, the Haytians are in no position to meet so gigantic a demand; nor is it seemly that one of the greatest nations of the earth should so crush the noble and persevering energies of a brave people. Let her be, as she assuredly ought to be, relieved from this monstrous external pressure; and the future of Hayti is, we trust, assured. France has affected incredulity on this point, because the leading members of the late revolution are "negroes." Nature, however, is stronger than prejudice, and will assert herself despite the doubts of egotism. Who can deny that Hayti is now under the control of her legitimate rulers? The pages of her history during the domination of the whites are stained with anarchy and murder; the records of her existence under the sway of her late administration present a succession of tyranny and wrong. Let America, therefore, if she see fit, withhold her social respect for the new order of things—her internal slavery demands thus much of her political consistency; let France continue her course of verbal philanthropy and moral coercion; but let England be true to the cause in which she has exhausted alike blood and treasure, and do due honour to the brave men who have vindicated the claims of their country to consideration and support.

In the 19th century, the question of colour is a reproach!

* Colonies Etrangères et Hayti, tome II. pp. 168-9.

592

ART. IX.-1. Second Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Banks of Issue, with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. 1841.

2. The Country Banks and the Currency; an Examination of the Evidence on Banks of Issue given before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1841. By G. M. Bell. Longman & Co.

3. Letters to the Right Honourable Francis Thornhill Baring, on the Institution of a Safe and Profitable Paper Currency. By John Welsford Cowell, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. Richardson.

4. The Currency and the Country. By John Gillibrand Hubbard, Esq. Longman.

As the Charter of the Bank of England is liable to expire upon twelve months' notice, if given within six months after the 1st of August next, the present appears a proper season for calling the attention of our readers to the subject of the

currency.

We have before us two Reports from the Committee on Banks of Issue, laid before the House of Commons in the years 1840 and 1841. The Committee report the evidence, and abstain from giving any opinion upon the great questions involved in the inquiry. They, however, recommended the passing of the Act 4 & 5 Vict. c. 50, requiring a monthly registry of the circulation of the Bank of England, and of the other banks of issue, with the amount of bullion, to be published in the " Royal Gazette." It may therefore be expected, that, in a course of years, a sufficient number of facts will be recorded to enable future generations to form "wellgrounded opinions" on this important subject.

In the mean time we will make use of the information we already possess. We will take the monthly returns of the circulation for the period that is past, that is, from September, 1833, to the end of 1843, and endeavour, by observing their various revolutions, to discover if they are governed by any fixed causes or principles-to ascertain if those principles are uniform in their operation; and if we should discover that the revolutions of the currency are regulated by any uniform principles, we shall call those principles, The Laws of the Currency.

We shall begin with that portion of the currency which