On what trifles depends the destiny of man! but the Europeans are so insolent that a few such lessons are absolutely necessary to correct them.
Monsieur C—— is a Creole, and belonged to the Staff of the general who commands at Port-au-Prince, from which he has been dismissed in consequence of this affair, which is another proof of the hatred the French officers bear the inhabitants of this country.
We have here a General of division, who is enriching himself by all possible means, and with such unblushing rapacity, that he is universally detested. He was a blacksmith before the revolution, and his present pursuits bear some affinity to his original employment, having taken possession of a plantation on which he makes charcoal, and which he sells to the amount of a hundred dollars a day. A carricature has appeared in which he is represented tying up sacks of coal. Madame A——, his mistress, standing near him, holds up his embroidered coat and says, "Don't soil yourself, General."
LETTER V.
Cape Francois.
Three of your letters arriving at the same time, my dear friend, have made me blush for my impatience, and force me to acknowledge that I have wronged you. But your friendship is so necessary to my happiness that the idea of losing it is insupportable. You know what clouds of misfortune have obscured my life. An orphan without friends, without support, separated from my sister from my infancy, and, at an age when the heart is most alive to tenderness and affection, deprived by the unrelenting hand of death, of him who had taught me to feel all the transports of passion, and for whose loss I felt all its despair—Cast on the world without an asylum, without resource, I met you:—you raised me—soothed me—whispered peace to my lacerated breast! Ah! can I ever forget that delightful moment when your care saved me? It was so long since I had known sympathy or consolation that my astonished soul knew not how to receive the enchanting visitants; fleeting as fervent was my joy: but let me not repine! Your friendship has shed a ray of light on my solitary way, and though removed from the influence of your immediate presence, I exist only in the hope of seeing you again.
In restoring me to my sister, at the moment of her marriage, you procured for me a home not only respectable, but in which all the charms of fashionable elegance, all the attractions of pleasure are united. Unfortunately, Clara, amidst these intoxicating scenes of ever-varying amusement, and attended by crowds, who offer her the incense of adulation, is wretched, and I cannot be happy!