French Cruelties in St. Domingue (1802)
French West-Indies The Intelligence from these Islands continue very distressing. An arrival at Philadelphia, from Port-Republican. in St. Domingo, brings accounts to the 2nd November: -- At that time the French. it was understood, were about to evacuate St. Marcs, Gonaives. and Leogane ; and that the blacks were in possession of L'Arcahaye. The fame accounts mention, that the French exercise the greatest imaginable cruelties on the blacks which fall into their hands :-- at St. Marcs, 600 of them were paraded. and ordered yo be disarmed ; and because they resisted the measure, they were all massacred. The dead bodies of the negroes were seen floating on the water by American vessels coming out of the bite of Leogane. It was said, that every week a vessel took 100 to 150 negroes on board at Port-Republic, carried them to sea, stifled them in the hold with brimstone, and then threw the bodies overboard ; and that a brig frequently took blacks on board at the Cape, went to sea, and in a few days returned empty. An arrival from New-York, from Jamaica, brings accounts to the 5th November ; which inform, of the arrival of a frigate from Cape-Francois, dispatched by Gen. Le Clerc. to solicit of the British government in Jamaica. an asylum for Madame Le Clerc, (who is the sister of Bonaparte) and suite ; the blacks having become so formidable as to render her residence in St. Domingo unsafe. The same accounts add, that the blacks had obtained a victory over the French near the Cape. The accounts from Guadeloupe, which reach into November, are equally unfavorable to the French, as those from St. Domingo ; and evince that unless speedily and powerfully reinforced, the evacuation of the island by them was unavoidable. |