On March 2 the enlightened Ministers of the late General Riché chose as President of the republic a black captain of the guards of the name of Soulouque. He was an ignorant, stupid man, completely unfit for any public employment, but it is said that he was chosen as an instrument that could be easily handled by his Ministers. He was known to be given up to fetish worship, and soon after his election he began to fear that some _wanga_ or poison might be given him. He put aside Riché’s Ministers, to supply their place with nonentities, and advanced to the first rank the most ignorant blacks of the army. He excited hatred against the men of colour, whom he feared for their intelligence; but, alarmed by his growing unpopularity, he dismissed his incapables and restored Dupuy and others to power. Soulouque had placed in command of his guards a general of the name of Similien, who was the black the most notorious for his hatred of the mulattoes that he could find. During the absence of the President in the north, this man refused to obey the orders of the Government, seized the palace, and threatened to massacre the mulattoes, but this result was deferred for a short time. A curious affair occurred towards the end of 1847. A senator of the name of Courtois had written an article in a newspaper at which the President took offence; though Courtois was a scurrilous writer who had been previously tried for an insolent article, but who had been triumphantly acquitted when it was found he only insulted the foreign community, and had on this last occasion written some reasonable comments on the attitude assumed by General Similien and his followers. The Senate, to please the President, sentenced Courtois to a month’s imprisonment. But when Soulouque heard of this, he went into one of his ungovernable passions, assembled his generals, called out his troops, and condemned Courtois to death, and ordered the immediate execution of the culprit. The sentence would certainly have been carried into effect had not our agents, Consul Ussher, Vice-Consul Wyke, and the French Consul-General Raybaud interfered, and persuaded Soulouque to pardon him; he was, however, banished. And Senator Courtois, who owed his life to foreigners, had spent his best energies in abusing them!