Pétion dared not to tax his subjects to supply the wants of his administration; and for this purpose he was driven to embarrass commerce by the imposition of enormous duties upon the trade carried on in his ports. But Christophe had assumed a station which forebade him to fear his subjects, and he furnished yearly millions to his treasury by a territorial tax, which poured one-fourth of all the productions of the kingdom into the royal coffers. Possessed of this revenue, which placed his finances beyond the contingencies of chance, the commercial regulations of Christophe were the very opposites of those enforced within the republic; and the traffic in the ports of the kingdom was annually augmented by a competition sustained at advantages so immense. The army of the monarchy was in all things better furnished and more respectable than that of the republic. The troops were well clothed and well armed. They were kept under a discipline so strict that it knew no mercy and permitted no relaxation. The smallest delinquency was visited upon the offender with unsparing flagellation or with military execution. The troops received a merely nominal stipend for their services, and each soldier was required to gain his subsistence by the cultivation of a few acres of ground, which were allotted him out of the national domain; and of this scanty resource a fourth was required to be delivered into the hands of the king’s officers, as a part of the royal revenues. Although Christophe had determined to maintain his power by the bayonets of the soldiery, he condescended to no measures of unusual moderation in his conduct toward these supporters of his authority. The soldiers of the army, as well as the laborers of the plantations, lived in perpetual dread of the rod of authority which was ever brandished over their heads; and of the merciless inflictions of authority the former obtained a more than ordinary share. Upon common occasions, Christophe assumed little state, showing himself among his subjects but as a private individual of superior rank. Like his model, George III., it was his habit to walk the streets of the capital dressed in plain citizen’s costume, and with no decorations to designate his rank but a golden star upon his breast. In this unostentatious manner he was often seen upon the quay, watching the operations at the custom-house; or in the town, superintending the laborers engaged in the erection of public edifices. His never-failing companion upon these occasions was a huge cane, which he exercised without mercy upon those who were idle in his presence, or whose petty offences of any kind called for extemporary flagellation.