In the early part of this work I have stated the quantity of produce exported in the year 1791, which was the most flourishing period of the French, and the number of slaves that were employed in the colony. That the reader may more clearly see the difference at the two periods, I shall enumerate the principal articles again. It appears by various authorities that the exports were as follow: in 1791—

Sugar163,405,220pounds.
Coffee68,151,180ditto.
Cotton6,286,126ditto.
Indigo930,016ditto.
Molasses29,502hogsheads.
Rum303puncheons.

And that there were employed for all the purposes of cultivation, four hundred and fifty-five thousand slaves. The most productive year under his sway, will be found to exhibit the following returns of exports:—

Sugar53,400,000pounds.
Coffee34,370,000ditto.
Cotton4,050,000ditto.
Cocoa234,600ditto.
Indigo37,600ditto.
Molasses9,128hogsheads.

According to Mr. Humboldt, the cultivators employed to carry on the whole of the works of agriculture, and to produce the above exports, did not exceed two hundred and ninety thousand. In addition to the foregoing returns should be taken into consideration the condition into which the soil had been brought by the exertions and the judicious measures pursued by this chief from the year 1798, when he became the leader of the people, to the time of his seizure. All those estates on which culture had so successfully recommenced, were so much improved by his system, that the greatest expectations were entertained respecting the produce of future exertions; but the fall of this chief, and the renewal of the contest between the people and the French, threw every thing again into confusion, and the work of cultivation for a time ceased, with the exception of the exertions made by the women, who applied themselves to labour, and their efforts were not altogether unavailing, for they proceeded with the lighter labour of the plantations, which was exceedingly beneficial.

When Dessalines assumed the command, the country was in a state of great irritability, and he could not therefore devote that attention to agriculture which his predecessor had done. But when he had succeeded in expelling the French from the island, and had restored some degree of tranquillity, and the people became somewhat free from apprehension of future broils, he began to devise means for reviving cultivation; but he wanted the discretion and the temper, as well as that knowledge of the people which Toussaint possessed. The latter pursued a system of culture, that in the first instance was easy and acceptable to them, and when he saw that they began to relax in their duty, he began to enforce it more rigidly, and under the sanction of the law inflicted punishment with no light hand, in cases of disobedience and refractory conduct. But Dessalines acted differently and most injudiciously, for he rushed upon the cultivators so suddenly, and with so tyrannical a hand, that disobedience began to be general; and those people who had in his predecessor’s time been the most industrious and most forward in setting an example to their fellow-labourers became supine and inactive through his oppressive proceedings. Dessalines knew well that force alone could compel his countrymen to work, and that nothing could be obtained from them if they were left to their own will; but he was too precipitate and hasty in introducing his measures of coercion. He even compelled his soldiers to labour in the field in parties, on such of the government estates as had not been farmed out, and for which they received a trifling addition to their regular military pay. But all his exertions were ineffectual in producing such returns as those which followed the efforts of Toussaint. Both knew that coercion was the only way by which cultivation could be carried on, and they both resorted to it. With one it succeeded in a degree which equalled his most sanguine expectations, because he advanced progressively, and the people did not feel it so severely; whilst the other burst upon the cultivators with an unmerciful hand and inflicted such punishments for disobedience as made them determine on resistance, and the consequence was, that a revolt followed, and Dessalines fell. By a document given me by an individual now living in Hayti, and who was attached to the suite of the tyrant, it appears that with all his power and exertions, his returns from the soil fell much below those of his predecessor. In 1804, which seems to have yielded about the largest return of his three years, the exports were the following:—

Sugar47,600,000pounds.
Coffee31,000,000ditto.
Cotton3,000,000ditto.
Cocoa201,800ditto.
Indigo35,400ditto.
Molasses10,655hogsheads.

The number of the cultivators at this period has not been stated, though I have been informed by respectable individuals that they were as numerous as in the time of Toussaint, but that from the very harsh proceedings of Dessalines a great number left their homes and fled to the eastern part of the island, and there lived in the woods and recesses of the mountains until they heard of his death.

In the time of Christophe and Petion the culture of the soil was carried on by the former with some spirit, whilst the latter allowed it to relax in a most extraordinary degree. Christophe pursued it with strong compulsory measures, as may be seen by his adoption of the code of Toussaint, but Petion left every thing to the will and inclination of his people. The government of the north, by means of its agricultural pre-eminence, had a flowing treasury, and its people advanced in affluence from the effects of industry; but the government of the south, from supineness and from a disregard of cultivation, was reduced to the lowest state of poverty, and was driven to expedients exceedingly ruinous in their consequences. By Christophe the people were taught to love agricultural pursuits, as conducive to their happiness and comforts; and were made to understand that cultivation would be enforced, and that the disobedient and the indolent would be visited with the full penalty of the law. By Petion every class of persons were permitted to pursue those courses to which their tastes and their will led them. Uncontrolled by any regulations of the state, they never pursued cultivation beyond their own immediate wants; and beyond the supply of those wants, which were inconsiderable, no surplus was left for the use of government or for the purposes of commerce. Whilst the north excited some degree of interest in the mind of the traveller as he pursued his journey through its several districts, by an appearance of industry and cultivation, the south displayed little more than occasional spots of vegetation, and the eye wandered over an expanse of country in a state of waste and neglect. The mistaken policy of Petion ruined the progress of agriculture in his part, and all his after efforts to restore its wonted vigour were ineffectual and unavailing. Fondly confiding that his people would without compulsion devote the whole of their time to the pursuits of industry, he permitted them to indulge in those propensities to which they were naturally prone. But instead of keeping pace with their northern neighbours in the progress of agricultural industry, they evidently receded beyond the possibility of recovery, and not a chance was left that agriculture would revive under the weak and ineffectual measures of Petion’s government.

Christophe most advantageously farmed out the government estates, and at the same time he gave to the farmers of them every possible support; but he most strictly bound them to push the culture of their lands as far as it was practicable from the paucity of labourers; and he also ordained the portion of labour which might be exacted from each of them. Every individual in the least acquainted with the portion of labour allotted for the slave in the British colonies will readily admit, that the labour performed by them, far from being excessive, does not exceed the ordinary labour of man in general throughout the agricultural countries in Europe or the United States of America. From every account which I have been able to collect, and from the testimony of living persons, Christophe exacted from every labourer the full performance of a day’s labour as provided for by the twenty-second article of the law for regulating the culture of soil, and which forms a part of the Code Henry, and every proprietor who did not enforce it incurred his severest censure. The only thing which impeded the great advancement of cultivation in his dominions was his contest with Petion, and the necessity which that occasioned for his keeping up a powerful military establishment, which took away the most able of the cultivators for the army.