“Throughout the island the women perform the principal part of the labour in the field and in the house.... I was often moved with pity for their lot, though I rejoiced that the burden was now voluntary, and admired the spirit of women who could so readily perform the work of the men, that the men may be employed in the defence and preservation of their liberties.”
The Major pounces on the fact stated by Mr. Dewey; but, with the amiable condescension of a superior nature, gently corrects his inferences.
“That Mr. Dewey, and pious persons like him, do state the facts which he observed correctly, I am quite convinced: but when he, and those who reason in his manner, assign causes as solely producing the effect, it is then that error glides into their statements.”
We are not so completely convinced as the Major seems to be, that all pious persons state correctly such facts as Mr. Dewey has observed: but we are sure, that Mr. Dewey must be the most ungrateful of men, if he is not grateful for such compliments. Indeed, the style which the Major always adopts towards philanthropists reminds us of Dogberry patting Verges on the back:—“A good old man. Sir! he will be talking. Well said, i’faith, neighbour. An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soid, i’faith, as ever broke bread. But God is to be worshipped. All men are not alike.” But we must go on with the argument of our philosophical commissioner.
“Any person who has travelled among people in a backward state of knowledge and social civilization, people who never experienced what slavery was, must have observed, as I have done, that the burden of agricultural labour is generally imposed on the females, by the arbitrary power exercised over them by the males....”
“Whilst an examination into the actual population of Hayti, and the real number of the males actually withdrawn from agricultural pursuits for those of military service, at the time Mr. Dewey made his observations, would show, that, though the cause assigned by him might have some effect, that, in point of fact, a more powerful influence would probably be found in the action of causes springing from a different source than that assigned by him as the true cause; and whilst these other powerful causes are left in action, little practical good is effected by the removal of a minor influence.” (1)
We have not time to notice the innumerable beauties of this headless and endless sentence, in which a double allowance of thats compensates for the absence of a nominative case and a verb:—those who study the works of the Major must take such grammar as they can get, and be thankful. But, does be advance any reason, or the shadow of tiny reason, for dissenting from the opinion formed by a man whose honesty he acknowledges, on a point on which it is scarcely possible to be mistaken? No man of common sense can live three days in a country without finding out, whether it is by idleness, or by military duties, that the males are prevented from working. But Major Moody reasons thus—Savages, from their propensity to indolence, make their women work for them. The Haytians make their women work for them; therefore the Haytians are indolent savages;—an exquisite specimen of syllogistic reasoning! Horses are quadrupeds: but a pig is a quadruped; therefore a pig is a horse. The
(1) Ibid. p. 39.
dullest of the gravediggers in Hamlet would have been ashamed of such an argal.
The Major surely does not mean to deny, that, in civilized and industrious nations, circumstances similar to those which exist in Hayti, have compelled the women to engage in agricultural labour. History abounds with such instances. When, fourteen years ago, the Prussians rose against the French, almost the whole harvest of Silesia and Upper Saxony was gathered in by females. The conscriptions of Buonaparte frequently produced the same effect. The Major says, indeed, or rather we, endowing his purposes with Syntax, say for him, that if the numbers of the Haytian people and of the Haytian army were ascertained, the causes assigned by Mr. Dewey would be found to have produced only part of the effect. But what evidence does he offer? Where are his facts, and his reasonings on these facts? Does he know what the population of Hayti may be? Does he know how large its army may be? If he knows, why does he not tell us? If he does not know, how can he tell what might be the result of an examination into those particulars? It is something too much that a writer, who, when he tries to demonstrate, never demonstrates any thing but his own ignorance of the art of reasoning, should expect to be implicitly believed, when he merely dogmatizes.