I have given you Dominicana as a garden of poetry and the home of legendary song. Well, Hayti is a land of historical facts, and the field of unparalleled glory. Consulting one day with Mr. Redpath, the talented author of the series of letters to which I have previously referred, he suggested the impossibility of any one forming even a comparatively correct opinion respecting affairs in Hayti, without being guided by a sketch of the country’s previous history. Confessedly, therefore, much as his letters were appreciated by the readers of the _Tribune_ he had not done the Haytiens simple justice. Since nothing could be so highly interesting, be it mine and the _Anglo-African’s_ to undertake what the _Tribune_ and its correspondent failed to supply. The following compilation will be taken from Rainsford’s, St. Domingo, and Edwards’ and Coke’s histories of the West Indies, but principally, and when not otherwise marked, from Coke. There is nothing low or cowardly in the history of Hayti. Notwithstanding their conquests on the main land, the Spaniards were wont to regard it as the parent colony and capital of their American possessions. The buccaneers of Tortuga, however much they may have suffered or have been feared, can not be said to have ever been really conquered. In fact, by whomsoever settled, the country has shown one uninterrupted record of pride and independence. I regard this as an honor to begin with. The history of Hayti begins with the buccaneers, a company of French, English, and Germans, driven from their homes in the neighboring islands by the haughty arrogance of the Spaniards, in 1629. These men, collected on the shores of Tortuga, vowed mutual fidelity and protection to each other, but eternal vengeance against their persecutors. How well they kept their word has passed into a proverb. In 1665 the court of Versailles, observing a beautiful country of which some of its subjects had taken an actual though accidental possession, took the fugitive colony under its protection. It was not difficult for the French government to see that the island was in value equal to an empire, and it was therefore determined to enhance its interests with all possible speed. The first care was to select a governor who should be equal to the difficult task of humanizing men who had become barbarians; which important task was committed to D’Ogerton, a gentleman of Anjou. Hitherto not a single female resided in the settlement, to supply which deficiency was the governor’s first care. With this view he sent immediately to France, and many women of reputable character were induced to embark. From this time the prosperity of the colony fairly begins.