UNION.
It was early in the month of September that intelligence reached France of the reception which the decree of the 15th of May had met with in Hayti. The tumult and horrid massacres which we have noticed were represented in their most affecting colors. Consequences more dreadful were still anticipated. The resolution of the whites never to allow the operation of the ill-fated decree was represented as immovable; and serious apprehensions were entertained for the loss of the colony.
The mercantile towns grew alarmed for the safety of their capitals, and petitions and remonstrances were poured in upon the National Assembly from every interested quarter for the repeal of that decree which they plainly foresaw must involve the colony in all the horrors of civil war, and increase those heaps of ashes which had already deformed its once beautiful plains.
The National Assembly, now on the eve of dissolution, listened with astonishment to the effects of a decree which, by acknowledging the rights of the mulattoes, it was expected would cover them with glory. The tide of popular opinion had begun to ebb; the members of the Assembly fluctuated in indecision; the friends of the planters seized each favorable moment to press their point, and actually procured a repeal of the decree at the same moment that it had become a medium of peace in Hayti.
At length the news reached these unhappy shores. The infatuated whites resolved to support the repeal, which would leave the mulattoes at their mercy. A sullen silence prevailed among the latter, interrupted at first by occasional murmurings and execrations, and finally exploding in a frenzy which produced the most diabolical excesses yet on record.
Rigaud’s original motto was again revived, and each party seemed to aim at the extermination of the other. The mulattoes made a desperate attempt to capture Port au Prince, but the European troops lately arrived defeated them with considerable loss. They nevertheless set fire to the city, which lighted up a conflagration in which more than a third part of it was reduced to ashes.
Driven from Port au Prince, by the light of those flames which they had kindled, the mulattoes established themselves at La Croix Bouquets in considerable force, in which port they maintained themselves with more than equal address. At last, finding themselves and the revolted slaves engaged in a common cause, they contrived to unite their forces, and with this view drew to their body the swarms that resided in Cul de Sac. Augmented with these undisciplined myriads they risked a general engagement, in which two thousand blacks were left dead on the field; about fifty mulattoes were killed, and some taken prisoners. The loss of the whites was carefully concealed, but is supposed to have been equally as destructive.
The furious whites seized a mulatto chief whom they had taken prisoner, and, to their everlasting infamy, upon him they determined to wreak their vengeance. They placed him in a cart, driving large spike nails through his feet into the boards on which they rested to prevent his escape, and to show their dexterity in torture. In this miserable condition he was conducted through the streets, and exposed to the insults of those who mocked his sufferings. He was then liberated from this partial crucifixion to suffer a new mode of torment. His bones were then broken in pieces, and finally he was cast alive into the fire, where he expired. So much for the whites.
The mulattoes, irritated to madness at the inhumanity with which one of their leaders had been treated, only awaited an opportunity to avenge his wrongs. Unfortunately, an opportunity soon occurred. In the neighborhood of Jerimie, M. Sejourne and his wife were seized. The lady was materially enciente. Her husband was first murdered before her eyes. They then ripped open her body, took out the infant and gave it to the hogs; after which they cut off her husband’s head and entombed it in her bowels. “Such were the first displays of vengeance and retaliation, and such were the scenes that closed the year 1791.”
“A law there is of ancient fame,
By nature’s self in every land implanted,
Lex Talionis is its latin name;
But if an English term be wanted,
Give our next neighbor but a pat,
He’ll give you back as good and tell you—tit for tat!”