The year 1864 was distinguished for its conspiracies. In May a Colonel Narcisse denounced four coloured men of the best position in the capital as being engaged in a plot. The proofs of an active conspiracy were wanting. As I have given details of the trial in another chapter, I need only say that they were condemned to death, but their sentence was commuted at the intercession of the diplomatic corps. In July there was a conspiracy at Cap Haïtien by General Longuefosse, but the people not joining, he was taken and shot, with three of his companions. This was followed by another, in which Salnave, afterwards a revolutionary President of Hayti, first made his appearance in rather an interesting manner. General Philippeaux, Minister of War, had been sent by Geffrard to Cap Haïtien to restore order after Longuefosse’s abortive plot, when a conspiracy was formed in an artillery corps to murder Philippeaux, and Salnave was chosen to carry it into execution. One evening the Minister of War was sitting playing cards in a verandah, when Salnave, ensconced behind a neighbouring tree, raised his carbine and fired at him; the ball struck Philippeaux above the temple and glanced off. Not even the solid skull of a black could have resisted the bullet, had not the Minister, at the moment when Salnave fired, slightly turned his head. I may notice that in 1865 Spain abandoned Santo Domingo, and the Dominican republic was restored. If ever the true history be written of that temporary resuscitation of a colony, Spaniards themselves will be astonished at the revelations of iniquity and fraud that brought about the revolution against them. The year 1865 was an unfortunate one for Hayti. First a great fire burnt down three hundred and fifty houses in the best part of the capital; then there was a movement in the south; then one in the north, where Salnave, invading that department from Santo Domingo, found all ready to receive him. The regiments joined him or dispersed; but the rapid movement of Geffrard’s troops under Generals Morisset and Barthélemy, both of whom were killed fighting, disconcerted the conspirators, and they were soon driven from the country districts and forced to take refuge in Cap Haïtien. Had not many of the chiefs of Geffrard’s army been traitors to his cause, the whole affair might have been over in a month. A siege commenced, which appeared likely to endure long, when an incident occurred which forced on foreign intervention.