A ROVING COMMISSION

“I HAVE HEARD A GREAT DEAL OF YOU, MR. GLOVER,”THE ADMIRAL SAID.

A ROVING COMMISSION

OR

THROUGH THE BLACK INSURRECTION
AT HAYTI

BY

G. A. HENTY

Author of "With Frederick the Great," "The Dash for Khartoum"
"Both Sides the Border," etc.

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM RAINEY, R.I.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1904

Copyright, 1899,
By Charles Scribner's Sons.

PREFACE

Horrible as were the atrocities of which the monsters ofthe French Revolution were guilty, they paled before thefiendish outrages committed by their black imitators in Hayti.Indeed, for some six years the island presented a saturnalia ofmassacre, attended with indescribable tortures. It may beadmitted that the retaliation inflicted by the maddened whitesafter the first massacre was as full of horrors as were the outragesperpetrated by the blacks, and both were rivalled by themulattoes when they joined in the general madness for blood.The result was ruin to all concerned. France lost one of herfairest possessions, and a wealthy race of cultivators, many belongingto the best blood of France, were annihilated or driveninto poverty among strangers. The mulattoes, many of whomwere also wealthy, soon found that the passions they had doneso much to foment were too powerful for them; their positionunder the blacks was far worse and more precarious, than ithad been under the whites. The negroes gained a nominalliberty. Nowhere were the slaves so well treated as by theFrench colonists, and they soon discovered that, so far fromprofiting by the massacre of their masters and families, theywere infinitely worse off than before. They were still obligedto work to some extent to save themselves from starvation;they had none to look to for aid in the time of sickness andold age; hardships and fevers had swept them away wholesale;the trade of the island dwindled almost to nothing; and at lastthe condition of the negroes in Hayti has fallen to the level ofthat of the savage African tribes. Unless some strong whitepower should occupy the island and enforce law and order,sternly repress crime, and demand a certain amount of labourfrom all able-bodied men, there seems no hope that any ameliorationcan take place in the present situation.

G. A. HENTY.

CONTENTS