Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/222

 Influenced by the fears inspired by these forebodings, the two governments of Hayti were actuated by a common instinct of self-preservation to cease from their warfare, and instead of spending their resources in a civil strife which threatened to become interminable, to employ themselves in giving permanence to their existing condition, and prosperity to the country under their control. The population, which had been employed in the armies of the two powers, had been taken from their labors upon the soil, and the ravages of war had consumed and destroyed the scanty growth of the plantations.

Amidst this unproductiveness of agriculture, which spread the miseries of want and destitution among the inhabitants of both governments, the occurrence of a maritime war between the United States and England entirely cut off the supplies which had been drawn from those two countries, and the evil condition of the Island was complete. In this sad state of their affairs, both Christophe and Pétion ceased from all military operations against each other, without previous arrangement or military truce; and they directed all their efforts to heal the wounds which had been inflicted by hostile depredation or the neglect of peaceful employments within their respective territories.

The tax laid by Christophe upon his subjects exceeded in despotism anything of the kind ever before known in the Island; and even surpassed the outrageous demands of Dessalines.

Pétion dared not to tax his subjects to supply the wants of his administration; and for this purpose he was driven to embarrass commerce by the imposition of enormous duties upon the trade carried on