I noticed
that the walls were hung with good oil paintings gorgeously framed,
principally family portraits, but the most prominent in position was
that of the unfortunate Haytian chief, Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose
cruel end, at the instigation of the vindictive Bonaparte, will for ever
reflect shame on the French name as long as a sense of justice and love
of virtue and probity exists in the bosom of mankind. Far be it from me
to trample on the name of one whom retributive justice has consigned to
the dust, but the cruelty of Napoleon towards this magnanimous prince,
and his final barbarity in consigning him to a damp dungeon in a
fastness amongst the Alps, where he perished in exile from his subjects
and family after ten months' miserable endurance of the hardships
wrongfully imposed on him, almost causes a feeling of exultation at the
downfall of a despot, who, aiming at the sovereignty of the world,
scrupled not to sacrifice virtue and good faith at the shrine of
ambition. The fate of both chiefs was similar, for both perished in
captivity--the one the victim, perhaps, of inordinate ambition, the
other of unscrupulous avarice and envious malignity.
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