A Roving Commission Part 48

"I hope you will tell us in full about all these things, Madame d.u.c.h.esne," Mrs. Glover said, "for I fear that we shall never get a full account from Nat himself."

Myra went across to Mary.

"You are not angry with me, I hope," she said; "we are hot-tempered, we West Indians. When it seemed that you were speaking slightingly of the action to which I owe my life, I don't know what I should have said if my father had not stopped me."

"I am not in the slightest degree angry," Mary said; "or, rather, if I am angry at all it is with Nat. It is too bad of him keeping all this to himself. You see, he was quite a boy when he left us, and he used to tell us funny stories about the pranks that the midshipmen played.

Although we felt very proud of him when he told us that he had gained the rank of commander, we did not really know anything about sea matters, and could not appreciate the fact that he must have done something altogether out of the way to obtain that rank. But, of course, we like you all the better for standing up for him. I am sure that in future we girls shall be just as angry as you were if anyone says anything that sounds like running him down."

The time pa.s.sed rapidly, and, as the girls were never tired of listening to the tales of Nat's exploits, and Myra was never tired of relating them, Nat would have come in for any amount of hero-worship had he not promptly suppressed the slightest exhibition in that direction.

It was but a few days after his arrival in England that Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne learned by a letter from a friend, who was one of the few who escaped from the terrible scene, that their fears had been justified, and that Cape Francois, the beautiful capital of Hayti, had ceased to exist. Santhonax and Poveren had established a reign of terror, plunder, and oppression, until the white inhabitants were reduced to the most terrible state of suffering. The misery caused by these white monsters was as great as that which prevailed in France. At last General Galbaud arrived, having been sent out to prepare for the defence of the colony against an attack by the British. The two commissioners, however, refused to recognize his authority. Not only this, but they imperatively ordered him to re-embark, and return to France. Each party then prepared for fighting. The commissioners had with them the regular troops, and a large body of blacks. The governor had twelve hundred sailors, and the white inhabitants of the city, who had formed themselves into a body of volunteers.

The fighting was hard; the volunteers showed the greatest bravery, and, had they been well supported by the sailors, would have gained the day.

The seamen, however, speedily broke into the warehouses, intoxicated themselves with rum, and it was with difficulty that their officers could bring them back into the a.r.s.enal. The commissioners had, the night before, sent to a negro chief, offering pardon for all past offences, perfect freedom, and the plunder of the city. He arrived at noon on the 21st of June, and at once began the butchery of the white inhabitants.

This continued till the evening of the 23rd, by which time the whole of the whites had been murdered, the city sacked, and then burned to the ground.

Before Nat sailed in the _Spartane_, the d.u.c.h.esnes had taken a house at Torquay. Here the climate would be better suited to madame, the summer temperature being less exhausting and the winter so free from extremes that she might reasonably hope not to feel the change.

For five years Nat commanded the _Spartane_. If he did not meet with the exceptional good fortune that he had found in the West Indies, he had, at least, nothing to complain of. He picked up many prizes, took part in several gallant cutting-out adventures, and captured the French frigate _Euterpe_, of forty-six guns. For full details of these and other actions a search must be made in the official records of the British navy, where they are fully set forth. After a long and hard-fought battle, for which action he received post rank, he retired from the service, and settled down with Myra near Plymouth, where he was within easy reach of his own relations.

As soon as he was established there, her father and mother took a house within a few minutes' walk of his home. He congratulated himself that he had not remained in the West Indies, for had he done so he would, like all the naval and military forces in the islands, have taken part in the disastrous attempt to obtain possession of the island of San Domingo.

The Spaniards had ceded their portion to the French, and although the whites, mulattoes, and blacks were at war with each other, they were all ready to join forces against the British. The attempt to conquer an island so populous and strongly defended, and abounding with mountains in which the enemy could maintain themselves, was, if undertaken by a force of anything less than a hundred thousand men, foredoomed to failure. The force at first sent was ridiculously inadequate, and although it received reinforcements from time to time, these were not more than sufficient to fill the gaps caused by fever. Consequently, after four or five years' fighting, and the loss of fully thirty thousand men, by fatigue, hardship, and fever, the effort was abandoned, after having cost some thirty millions of money.

At the end of the war, Toussaint was virtually Dictator of Hayti. He governed strongly and well, but as he was determined to admit no interference on the part of the French, he was finally treacherously seized by them, carried to France, and there died, it is said by starvation, in prison. His forebodings as to the unfitness of the blacks for self-government have been fulfilled to the letter. Civil wars, insurrections, and ma.s.sacres have been the rule rather than the exception; the island has been gradually going down in the scale of civilization, and the majority of the blacks are as savage, ignorant, and superst.i.tious as their forefathers in Africa. Fetish worship and human sacrifices are carried on in secret, and the fairest island in the western seas lies sunk in the lowest degradation--a proof of the utter incapacity of the negro race to evolve, or even maintain, civilization, without the example and the curb of a white population among them.

"Wherever English is spoken one imagines that Mr. Henty's name is known. One cannot enter a schoolroom or look at a boy's bookshelf without seeing half-a-dozen of his familiar volumes. Mr. Henty is no doubt the most successful writer for boys, and the one to whose new volumes they look forward every Christmas with most pleasure."

--_Review of Reviews._