CHAPTER XIX. 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.