The New Hampshire Gazette

LANSINGBURGH, July 9.

An obliging correspondent who resided in one of the West India Islands at the time of the insurrection of the negroes, in the year 1791, has favored us with the following extract from his journal :

HAVING walked a small distance from the boat, my ears were stunned with the most agonizing cries, accompanied with the crack of the fouette,* which seemed to proceed from a neighboring canefield ; I quickened my pace, which in a few moments brought me to the place from whence proceeded the cries. Good heaven ! what a scene presented itself !-a poor wretched negro lying with his face to the ground, naked and covered with blood, and four other negroes holding his hands and feet extended as far as possible ; beside him stood the overseer of the plantation, and a negro driver with his fouette, with which, at every stroke, he took a piece of flesh from the poor wretch's back. This was not enough, "strike harder, rascal," said the inhuman overseer, to the driver, and at the same time gave him a severe stroke with his large cane across the head. The poor sufferer turned his head to the overseer, and supplicated in terms that would have made a heart of adamant to relent. It could not be ;-expostulating with devils is in vain. Frantic with anguish, he turned his eyes to me, and begged my intercession ; it was too much for one of less feeling than myself to deny. I stepped up to the overseer, and begged for God's sake that he would kill the wretch outright, if he must die, and not suffer him to linger under the sufferings of excessive inhumanity ; I used all the eloquence humanity and my feelings could suggest to move the monster to compassion ; but oh ! the depravity of man ! not one spark of that virtue could be found in him ; my entreaties joined to those of the nearly expiring sufferer, could not avail : the fellow had run a way, be should have his full five hundred well laid on," was his reply. Unable longer to be a spectator of so much cruelty, finding myself grow sick and faint. I turned and made the best of my way back to the boat. What a pity, thought I, that the unhappy sufferer had not enough resolution to rid himself of these tortures by plunging a knife into his heart.

"The next morning we saw from our ship a large smoke towards the plantations of ****, we soon received the intelligence that the negroes had risen, and that several overseers had been massacred, among whom was the relentless torturer related of.

* A FOUETTE is a whip in shape of a full bellied snake, is 10 feet long, and tied to a handle two feet long, purposely for the use of the drivers ; it seldom fails of taking off a bit of flesh where it is laid on with any force ; and the drivers are so dexterous with it, that at the distance of 6 or 8 feet they can strike a copper, perhaps 100 times without once missing it.

The island of Hispaniola is 450 miles in length, about one half belongs to the French and the other to the Spaniards. In 1790, the French part was populated with 30,800 whites, about the same number of free mulattoes, and 434,400 slaves. The amount of produce shipped from the Island in the same year was twenty-four millions, five hundred dollars. Cape Francois was situated on the north side, and was the largest town in the island : it contained about three thousand houses. From its favorable situation for trade, the luxuries and richness of the soil, and temperature of the climate. it bid fair to be one of the largest cities in the western world. The town and property destroyed by the late dreadful catastrophe, can be estimated at no less than four hundred millions of dollars.

Port-au-Prince is situated upon an extensive Bay on the west part, and which was very little inferior to the Cape, about eighteen months since shared the same fate : the inhabitants, however, were more fortunate in saving their lives. The poor ignorant negroes have long been kept in a state of cruel slavery, with inhuman severity, whilst the whites have wallowed in luxury :-they have now retaliated on their unfeeling torturers with a terrible vengeance.