The vexed question as to the position held by the negroes in the great scheme of nature was continually brought before us whilst I lived in Hayti, and I could not but regret to find that the greater my experience the less I thought of the capacity of the negro to hold an independent position. As long as he is influenced by contact with the white man, as in the southern portion of the United States, he gets on very well. But place him free from all such influence, as in Hayti, and he shows no signs of improvement; on the contrary, he is gradually retrograding to the African tribal customs, and without exterior pressure will fall into the state of the inhabitants on the Congo. If this were only my own opinion, I should hesitate to express it so positively, but I have found no dissident voice amongst experienced residents since I first went to Hayti in January 1863. I now agree with those who deny that the negro could ever originate a civilisation, and that with the best of educations he remains an inferior type of man. He has as yet shown himself totally unfitted for self-government, and incapable as a people to make any progress whatever. To judge the negroes fairly, one must live a considerable time in their midst, and not be led away by the theory that all races are capable of equal advance in civilisation. The mulattoes have no doubt far superior intelligence, and show greater capacity for government, but as yet they have had no marked success. It is pitiable to read their history, and see how they are almost ever swayed by the meanest impulses of personal interest and ambition, and how seldom they act from patriotic motives. During the twenty years which have elapsed since I first became acquainted with the country, what a dreary succession of meaningless conspiracies, from the abortive attempt of General Legros in 1863, to the disastrous civil strife between two sections of the mulatto party, led by Boisrond-Canal and Boyer-Bazelais, when the latter completed the ruin of those of his own colour, and let in their worst enemies, the blacks, who had dreamed for twenty years of their extermination (1879). Scarcely one of these plots and insurrections, by which the country has been bathed in blood, but was founded on the hope of office and the consequent spoils. The thoughts of the conspirators are concentrated on the treasury and the division of its contents. “Prendre l’argent de l’état ce n’est pas volé,” is the motto of all parties, of every shade of colour.