interests, and labored for the diffusion through the great body of the people of the higher influence of civilization, if they could have secured those positions.
The mutual hatred between the mulattoes and the blacks was so deeply rooted, that neither party could see anything good in the other; and therefore, whatever was put forth by one party, no matter how meritorious in itself, was regarded with suspicion by the other.
The regular army of Dessalines was composed of fifteen thousand men, in which there was included a corps of fifteen hundred cavalry. They were a motley assemblage of ragged blacks, kept in the ranks, and performing their limited routine of duty through the awe inspired among them by the rigid severity of the imperial discipline. The uniform of the troops had not been changed when the Island was erected into an independent power, and the red and blue of the French army still continued to distinguish the soldiers of the Haytian army, even when the French were execrated as a race of monsters, with whom the blacks of St. Domingo should have nothing in common. Together with the regular army of the empire, there existed a numerous corps of national guard, composed of all who were capable of bearing arms; though the services of these were not required but in some dangerous emergency of the State. The national guard and regular army were called into the field four times every year; and during these seasons of military movement, the government of Dessalines was over a nation of soldiers in arms, as they remained in their encampment for some days, to be instructed in military
