138
HISTORY  OF  ST. DOMINGO.
1791.
chap. in. of the rebellion; nevertheless, those at Grande Riviere and Don-
don were attacked by the negroes, joined by mulattoes, and
after a sharp contest, forced with great slaughter. The surviving
whites from Dondon took refuge in the Spanish territory.
The whole of the plain, of the Cape, and the district of
Grande Riviere, now in the possession of the insurgents, and
abandoned to their ravages, as were the miserable inhabitants, to-
whom no assistance could be given, who, therefore, suffered every
injury, that bewildered licentiousness could devise, before a death,
in this instance merciful, but of more- than common torments,
closed for them the scene.
It serves few of the purposes of history to describe the va-
rious modes of torture which occurred to the savage insurgents,
or to relate accounts of the grossest violations of virgins and preg-
nant women, in the presence of their dying husbands, or pa-
rents ; much it is to be regretted, that civilized states should ever
find it necessary to render torture of any kind familiar to vulgar
minds, for they are exhibitions that live in the memory, and steel
the heart against those affections which form the grandest boun-
dary of our nature. There is reason to fear that the perpetrators
of those horrid deeds, had been witnesses to the ridicule of
miser}'' in others who should have evinced themselves superior to
such conduct, by the godlike attributes of mercy and benevo-
lence; the licentiousness of their intercourse with the female slaves,
could leave no impression to prevent a retaliation on the occa-
sion