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PRINCIPAL OCCURRENCES

In the Year 1803.

JANUARY 1.

Plymouth. was this morning received here, of the loss of the ship Duke of Clarence, of this port, Captain M. Fawkner, on the 28th September last, on her passage from Quebec, laden with a cargo of wheat. She was driven on shore in a gale of wind on Magdalen Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and went to pieces in the course of half an hour.

INTELLIGENCE

The captain, the supercargo, and his son, the chief mate, four marines and a boy, unfortunately perished; the second mate and three seamen were saved by an American schooner from the Bay of Chaleur, and landed at Beverley.

A phænomenon, which seldom occurs in this country, took place at Falmouth. About noon, a sudden whirlwind, extremely violent, passed, with a rapid motion, over about a sixth part of the town, in a direction from S. to N. The noise was very great, and spread consternation among the inhabitants of that part of the town over which it passed, and the congregation as sembled in the church which lay in its course. The effects were so limited as not to be felt in the least degree in any other part of the

place. As it passed over the harbour it was so violent as to produce a cloud of thick spray, which obscured the vessels lying there; and on its clearing off, a ship, which lay near the centre of its direction, was seen thrown on her beam ends, her keel in sight. The roof of every house in its way was rifled-several trees were torn up, a large copper vane was forced into an indented form. The wind was not high when the tornado arose: its operation was altogether instantaneous, and an almost perfect calm immediately succeeded it. Fortunately there were boats, nor vessels of any description, under sail in the harbour; and it was also fortunate that the inhabitants were assembled in the church: if there had been many persons in the streets, they could not have escaped uninjured, from the large pieces of slate and stone which were blown from the houses and strewed the streets.

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5. We yesterday received American papers to the 4th of December. The intelligence they bring from St. Domingo is of a nature the most disastrous to the French cause in that colony. The reduc tion of the insurgent blacks, so far from being in the train of accomplishment, appears now more re(A 2)

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mote than at the first landing of the French troops. The negroes, exasperated to madness by the fate of a leader to whom they were powerfully attached, are resolved to perish rather than submit to the yoke of men who had, in violation of an express compact, removed him from the presence of his for mer followers, and made him the first object of their vengeance. A spirit has been introduced which no violence can subdue, and no conciliation can soften. If the French ever expect to retain quiet possession of this fine colony, they must obtain it at the expense of extirpating the whole existing generation of blacks, and fill their places by new importations from Africa. Even then, the restoration of order, of productive labour, of any thing like commer. cial enterprise, must be the result of long and painful exertion. The. dreadful situation to which the colony is reduced, we may deplore, but it is precisely what we had reason to anticipate. The policy of the French general has been throughout most opposite to every principle of wisdom and expediency. Established as the dominion of Toussaint was at the time of his landing, and disposed as he had formerly discovered himself to cultivate a good understanding with the mother country, nothing but the most ill-judged measures could have prevented the French troops' taking quiet possession of the island. If Toussaint had been addressed in the language of kindness, if he had been prepared for the reception of the French troops, not as coming to divest him of authority, but to co-operate with him in restoring the trade of the island; if a prospect had been held out to him that his importance among his

followers would not be destroyed by their arrival, they would then have found the negroes, if not prepared to bend to the severity of a yoke from which they had escaped, at least willing to act as useful cultivators. The adoption of an opposite system, and the prospect of a return to all the rigours of slavery, at once decided their resolution. Betwixt death and slavery, the choice was easy with men who had begun to taste something of the fruits of independence. Hostility was determined on, and was succeeded by exasperation. No alternative was henceforth left, but the massacre of the whole French force in the island, or a return to the yoke, under masters from whom they could hope for nothing but the utmost severity of treatment as the punishment of the obstinacy of their rebellion. Such have been the fruits of the impolitic conduct of the French general. Such have been the causes which have involved in destruction the greater part of one of the most formidable expeditions which ever sailed from the ports of Europe. Such are the causes which must for a long period deliver up the island to all the horrors of massacre and desolation, and which, in their consequences, may lead to the establishment of an independent black government in this extensive and fertile colony.

In Guadaloupe the same effects have resulted from the same causes. Nothing but confusion, pillage, and bloodshed prevails in that island. The blacks, driven to madness by the measures of the French, are butchering the whites, without regard to age or sex. The French are retorting with equal cruelty; and such blacks as fall into their hands are instantly dispatched, without even the ceremony of a trial.

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At Martinique a considerable mortality prevails among the French troops; but it does not appear that there is any disposition to insurrec tion. The island was indeed left in a state of such complete subordination by our troops, and the plantations all over the island were brought to such a high pitch of improvement, that nothing but the grossest misconduct on the part of the French can give rise in this island to those afflicting scenes which the colonies of St. Domingo and Guadaloupe present. On ac count of the prevalence of the infectious distemper, all commerce betwixt Martinique and the British colonies has been strictly prohibited.

New-York, Dec. 4.-The aspect of affairs in St. Domingo appears, by every intelligence, to grow still more gloomy. The sovereign contempt in which the French held the negroes has led to the most fatal consequences. Their subjugation was to have been the work of a few weeks, which was to have restored the unfortunate planters to the tranquil possession of their estates. Many respectable families, who during the late war had sought and found an asylum in the United States, allured by the flattering accounts of the French operations, have returned to St. Domingo and Guadaloupe. Their fate is truly to be commiserated. The little they had been able to save from the former wreck of their fortunes is likely to be totally dissipated, and themselves and families are exposed to be massacred by the enraged and unrelenting blacks. After the fate of Toussaint, these outrageous negroes will never repose confidence in any overtures or stipulations on the part of the French nation.

Nothing short of total extirpation can re-establish the colonies of St. Domingo and Guadaloupe ;-a dreadful expedient! which most likely will defy every effort of the French. The probability is, that these islands must, at last, be abandoned to the negroes.

The force at Port Republican does not amount to more than 3000 troops, and 2000 white inhabitants; a force too inadequate to make any impression on the large body of negroes in arms in the neighbourhood, between whom frequent skirmishes take place, which have little other effect than the reduction of both parties.

At St. Mark's the French, grow. ing jealous of the black troops in their pay, drew up 600 of them, and surrounded them with an intention of disarming them; but the negroes refused to deliver up their arms, and fired on the surrounding troops, who returned the fire, and every negro was massacred.

Cruelty seems to be the order of the day at Hispaniola. A few days before the ship sailed, a brigand boat was taken and brought in. All the brigands but two were killed: one of them said they had a little while before taken a schooner full of white women, all of whom they had put to death; and that his comrade, who then lay wounded near him, had, with a ram-rod, twisted out the eyes of several of the white women while alive.

On coming through the bite of Leogane, he saw a great number of dead negroes, and some few whites, floating in the sea; and he was told that a schooner weekly, and perhaps oftener, at Port Republican, took 100 or 150 persons on board, and carried them out, and on the first (AS)

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or second night stifled them by burning brimstone in the hold, and then threw their bodies overboard. We are told something of the same kind was practised at the Cape a barge there frequently took a number of blacks, went out to sea with them, and returned empty.

The captain says, it was reported that Christophe and Dessalines, with a large portion of the blacks who were in the service of the French, had revolted; but this, with any account at Cape Nichola, was so vague, that it is scarcely worth repeating. Every account seems to predict the total evacuation of the island by the French, without a considerable reinforcement, which, from every thing we have seen, seems rather at a di

stance.

The Newburyport Herald, of Tuesday last, says "Captain Bunting, who arrived yesterday, has told us the situation of Guadaloupe in some measure, which is horrid indeed: confusion, pillage, bloodshed, and murder, are the order of the day; the insurgents do actually gain ground; and captain B. speaks of it as his opinion, that if fresh troops do not shortly arrive, the blacks will have possession of the island. To minute the shocking transactions that daily occur would be tedious. They have extended their ravages to Point Petre; but at St. Ann's, a small town about 15 miles from there, a massacre of the inhabitants, without regard to age or sex, took place about the middle of October. Hanging and shooting the blacks has become so common, that the spectator there is hardly actuated by emotions of astonishment at the scene: 180 of these poor

wretches were executed at one time, at Basseterre, about a week before. captain Bunting sailed. The fever is still making its ravages, not only among the French troops, but on the Americans there. Markets are tolerably good."

Marlborough-street, 7.-Yesterday an examination took place before the sitting magistrate, R. Neave, esq. in which a gentleman of the name of Pearce, and a very beautiful young lady, named Johnson, were charged with assaulting and firing a pistol at William Cobb, the preceding evening, in Paddingtonstreet, Mary-le-bone.

The first witness in support of the charge was Lawrence Macobey, apprentice to Mr. John Sharp, in Paddington-street, who stated that he was standing in conversation with Cobb, his fellow-servant, and the watchman, about nine o'clock; they were conversing about a supper which Cobb had taken in Harley-street, when the witness said— "You stuffed your craw nicely." At this time miss Johnson was walking backwards and forwards; and upon hearing this reply, immediately said " Don't be impertinent. I'll fetch somebody shall give you a pill." She then went into a fishmonger's near, and fetched Mr. Pearce out: the witness was then going home. In a few minutes they both came into his master's shop, and Mr. Pearce immediately collared him, miss Johnson saying "This is the boy that insulted me." Cobb instantly entered the shop, and said, he would not see the boy ill-used. Miss Johnson then turned round, and said-" Oh, ho! it is not the boy that insulted me, it is the man." The watch was immediately called, and cach party charged

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