ABSTRACT

I T is a very difficult task to ascertain the exact number of the population in Hayti, and I may in all probability not be correct in the statement which was given to me, although I am convinced that the individual from whom I received it would not knowingly have offered me a document containing an erroneous calculation. Indeed I place great reliance on this statement, because the official station of its author affords him information which is not easily to be obtained from any other source. I t appears that the census said to have been taken in the year 1824, and the particulars of which I have in my possession as presented to me personally by Boyer, is a fabrication of government, promulgated intentionally to astonish the nations of Europe with the rapid increase of the population since the expulsion of the French in the time of Dessalines. This census when taken into consideration will appear almost incredible, and, from the

The incredibility attached to such a statement as the preceding will be manifested, when it is remembered that in 1802, in the time of Toussaint, the population In the ancient French part was, according to Hum-

N OW it must I think be admitted that such an increase as appears from a comparison of these two statements cannot be probable. That the popula. tion of any country should double in twenty-two years, cannot for a moment be believed. Here it is represented to have more than doubled, for there is a decrease in the Spanish part of nearly thirtyfour thousand, and the subsequent war with Le Clerc and the massacres of Dessalines, as well as the long internal contests between Christophe and

Petion, are not taken in the scale of decrease. The census of 1824, therefore, will, I should think, appear erroneous. That it is prima facie a fabrication, cannot be denied; and the advantage expected to result from this falsification I cannot comprehend. By the statement to which I have alluded as given to me, and on which I can rely as containing a more correct return of the population of 1824, Hayti appears to contain :-

And about three hundred white inhabitants, consisting of foreign merchants, tradesmen, handicraftsmen, &c.