Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/205

 Rh sent to France in 1825 had failed to obtain either a reduction in the amount of the indemnity or the determining of a date for the discontinuance of the privilege of the payment of half duty on all the French products. On the 31st of October, 1825, they signed a commercial convention which the President of Haiti refused to approve.

Instead of improving, the relations between Haiti and France grew daily worse. It was impossible for Haiti to pay the enormous sum which Charles X had forced upon her. There were unavoidable delays in the payment of the instalments, which gave rise to endless disputes and misunderstandings with France. In 1828 a Haitian agent, Mr. St. Macary, went to Paris; he also failed in his mission, and returned in 1829 to Haiti, where the French Consul-General again took up the negotiations. As a result of this a commercial treaty and a convention concerning the indemnity were signed in April, 1829. These, however, France refused to ratify; and Baron Pichon was appointed to carry on new negotiations. He arrived at Port-au-Prince in 1830, and failing to come to an agreement with the Haitian plenipotentiaries, he returned to France in April. Thus relations between the two countries became very strained; for the Haitian Government was bent on discontinuing the advantage of the payment of half duty which the Ordinance of 1825 had granted to French commerce. The instalments were irregularly paid and the French products were made to pay the same taxes levied on the merchandise of all other nations. The ordinance of 1825, the cause of so much trouble, was thus little by little repudiated by the Haitians.

To prevent any complaint on the part of France, Boyer, in April, 1830, again sent St. Macary to France. The negotiations were being carried on in Paris when the revolution of 1830 occurred. The downfall of Charles X put an end to the parleys, which were not