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AUGUST, 1861. DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 505 [[line across page]] [[3 ruled columns]] [[column 1]] country and to the sea side. We had such an [[italics]] Arctic [[/italics]] season last year, that fires were indispensable, and summer costumes invisible. Now it is just the reverse; every thing relative to hay-making and harvest is propitious, (thanks to the Giver of all good!) and cheerfulness is manifest on all sides save where [[italics]] American trade [[/italics]] preponderates, and there we have gloom and trouble. The Continental news will have reached you ere this arrives, and you will have learnt with regret that the noble, true patriot and great statesman, COUNT CAVOUR, is no more. There is little doubt but that he sunk under the weight of duties and responsibilities devolving on him. 'His hair,' we are told, 'turned quite white during his short illness.' 'Tell every body,' he said, 'and publish it in the journals, that [[italics]] I die a true Christian. [[/italics]] 'Baron RICASOLI has been induced to accept his difficult post, and produced a favorable impression on his first appearance in Parliament.--But the mourning for the departed CAVOUR is universal; and it seems to us, short sighted mortals, that poor Italy can ill afford to lose one of the noblest of her patriot sons; but God 'doeth according to His will,' 'among the inhabitants of earth, and none can stay His hand or say, "What doest Thou?' How often do we see the man to whom all eyes are turned, and on whom all hopes are fixed, suddenly removed. What a contrast to Count CAVOUR is presented in the distinguished American statesman, lately deceased, STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. It makes one sigh to think of his powerful mind, his mistaken course, his lost opportunities, and his sudden end, coming as it did just when there seemed a hope of his retrieving, to some extent, his past mistake, by rallying round the Union flag, and cutting loose from his Southern affinities. I need no daguerreotype to bring his appearance to my mind. It seemed to me as day after day I watched him from the gallery of the Senate Chamber at Washington, a few years since, and contemplated his massive head, his coruscated brow, and his rapid movements, and listened to his impetuous and daring words, that [[italics]] power [[/italics]] was manifest in all, and that, single handed, almost he might, like another WARWICK, turn the scale either way, for York or Lancaster, freedom or slavery.--Poor man! he chose the worse part, and has fallen another victim to insatiate ambition, and 'praise and blame fall on his ear alike, now cold in death.' Our excellent and aged Lord Chancellor (CAMPBELL) was found dead in his room last Sunday morning. He died in harness. He sat on the bench on Saturday, heard a case, and intimated that [[italics]] 'he would take time to consider his judgment.' [[/italics]] He went to a Cabinet Council in the afternoon, entertained a party of friends in the evening, retired to his room and [[italics]] died. [[/italics]] The Sultan is deceased, and the Pope seriously ill. CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S aged father, Rev. PATRICK BRONTE, having long outlived his gifted children, has at length been called home. You will have heard of the fearful fire that we have had in London, the most disastrous since the one termed 'the great fire of London.' The country was illuminated by the flames for twenty miles around the metropolis, and three millions worth of property is said to have been destroyed. The able, energetic [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] and worthy Mr. BRAIDWOOD, Chief of the Fire Brigade, has fallen a victim to the flames, while doing his duty at his post of danger. My letter is of a very desultory nature, but so full of news that I shall not apologize for it; but, with our united regards, assure you that I remain, as always, Your faithful friend, JULIA G CROFTS. [[line]] [From the Liberator.] THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO. -- I have just seen a small pamphlet, which was first published in the columns of the N. Y. [[italics]] Daily Tribune [[/italics]], styled-- 'THE LESSON OF ST. DOMINGO--HOW TO MAKE THE WAR SHORT AND THE PEACE RIGHTEOUS.' The title attracted my attention, and I read the contents eagerly. The History of Hayti, so replete with useful instruction to countries wherein slavery still protracts its horrors, is, unhappily, too little known by Americans.--The author of the article in question is one of those publicists, so rare in this country, who appear to have attentively investigated the subject. His thoughtful language denotes that he has pondered deeply over the bloody catastrophes of that terrible history. The parallel which he establishes between the actual situation of the United States, and that in which Saint Domingo found itself when the war of independence broke forth, is, unfortunately, too just. The lesson which he deduces from it may be of no small importance to the destinies of this great republic.--You that have read, reflect! for, in history, as in physics, like causes produce like effects. But, in the hasty enumeration which he makes of the different events which signalize that period of strife, bloody but glorious for Saint Domingo, the author has, I believe unintentionally, reproduced certain false statements invented by the hellish malignity of the colonists, primarily for the culpable and sacrilegious purpose of sowing discord and distrust between the men of color and the blacks, in order the more easily to accomplish their subjugation. These malicious and lying assertions have since been completely refuted by history, and contradicted by facts. It would be hardly necessary to refute them here, were it not that it may perhaps be of service to those who may have read the article to which I refer, not being at all familiar with the history of St. Domingo, or Hayti, to have those errors corrected. I. The author of the article says, speaking of the taking up of arms by Oge--'He put himself at the head of two or three hundred of his class in arms, and made a modest demand upon the planter's assembly of the North; for the legal rights of his class. In this address, he took care to say: "I shall not have recourse to any rising of the slave gangs. I never comprehended, in my claims, the negroes in a state of slavery," &c.' II. Further on, in narrating briefly the events which attended the famous insurrection of blacks under the lead of Jeannot, Jn. Francois and Biasson, he adds:--'All classes of whites and [[italics]] mulattoes [[/italics]] joined in suppressing this insurrection, and pushed their advantage of science and arms so far that they overdid it. By their wholesale slaughter of slaves who had no part in the conspiracy, they [[italics]] to have a strength inversely proportionate to the difference of color between the parties' [[/italics]]--it is erroneous, I say, to suppose that those men, who, although free, suffered, on account of their extraction, humiliations, persecutions, oftimes worse than the tortures of slavery itself, could ever have imagined, for a single moment, that their cause was distinct from that of the enslaved blacks. Let it be well understood, that at no time and no where, in regard to this question of negro slavery, have the mulattoes and free blacks failed to recognize the cause of the black and mulatto slaves as completely identified with their own. That hideous distinction which the colonists of St. Domingo were compelled to establish, in order [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] to fortify and maintain slavery in the colonies, ran counter to the natural good sense of the people, both black and yellow, whose perpetual enslavement was desired, but whom interest and instinct naturally induced to unite, on the first favorable occasion, against the colonists, their common foes. For the rest, there is no doubt that the future of the United States will verify that which the past of Saint Domingo (1) has proven. It is true that Oge, compelled to resort to arms in order to rescue himself from the unjust persecutions with which he was struggling, did not contemplate an immediate and sudden emancipation of the slaves; nevertheless, his noble heart never ceased to sympathize with their condition, and, by laboring to obtain perfect equality, just and natural, among [[italics]] all free men [[/italics]] of the colony, (blacks, whites and yellows,) he hoped, by so doing, to prepare the way for that great work of humanity and justice, the object of his passion and of his most ardent vows. These sentiments of Oge were too openly avowed to be justly denied to him. It was by his efforts and initiative, aided by Jules Raymond, a mulatto, that the Argenson Club was organized at Paris in 1789, under the presidency of Mr. Jolly, a distinguished philanthropist, to plead also the cause of the negroes before that French nation, which had just risen to bring to trial both peoples and kings. The Club, at its meetings of the 3d, 8th, 12th and 22d of September, 1789, drew up a memorial of grievances of the men of color and free blacks, and demanded of the National Assembly the extinction of those odious prejudices against color, by proclaiming that there could be but two classes of men in the colonies: that of freemen, and that of men living in a state of servitude. At the same time, [[italics]] the memorial proposed a plan for the amelioration of the condition of the slaves, and the gradual abolition of slavery. [[/italics]] (2) But even before this memorial was actually drawn up, when Oge, conscious of his rights, dared to present himself alone, on the 7th of September, 1789, before the Massiac Club, composed of colonists, his enemies, to discuss with them the cause of his brethren, in an impassioned discourse which he delivered, he hurled into their midst, like a cry of his soul, the memorable speech which had a prolonged echo, reaching as far as the mountain of Saint Domingo. 'But, gentlemen,' said he, 'in speaking of liberty--that word liberty which we do not pronounce without enthusiasm, that word which carries with it the idea of happiness, were it merely because it seems to make us forget the evils which we have suffered for centuries--this liberty, [[italics]] the greatest, the chief of blessings, [[/italics]] is it intended for all men? [[italics]] I think so. [[/italics]] Ought it to be given to all men? [[italics]] I believe this also.' [[/italics]] (3) But, as if to re-assure the colonists, frightened by his audacious conceptions, Oge, whose generous and chivalric soul demanded justice for his brethren, and not the blood of their enemies, added later, on another occasion, the words which have been quoted in these columns: 'I shall not have recourse to any raising of the slave gangs.' Because of Oge, who had associated intimately at Paris with Robespierre, Brissot, Gregoire and La Fayette, and had drank with them from the same cup of liberty, trusting to the principles of justice and of equality just proclaimed in France, hoped to attain the realization of his wishes without shock and without violence, by the force of justice and reason alone. So, when compelled to oppose force to force for his personal protection, Chavannes, his friend, a mulatto, one of those valorous Haytians who voluntarily received the baptism of the fire of battle at Savannah, fighting under Count d'Estaing for American liberty, proposed to him to raise the slaves, to proclaim ------ [[footnote]] (1) It is well to remember, that the name of Saint Domingue used in this writing [[italics]] merely [[/italics]] refers to the French part of the island of Hayti--at that time the French calling it 'the colony of St. Domingo.' The same constitutes now the Republic of Hayti, under the rule of Fabre Geffrard, President. (2) St. Remy, Petion and Haiti, Sec. 1, p.45, 43. T. Madiou, Hist. d'Haiti, vol.1, p.54. (3) Disquisitions on the history of Hayti B. Ardouin. Vol. 1 p. 114. An account of the troubles of St. Domingo. J. P. Garran. Vol. 2, p. 197. [[/footnote]]
