?8
CHAP. I.
1897.
Topography,
&c.
French divi-


HISTORY OF  ST. DOMINGO.
tageously (except as regarded its commodious bay, and sometimes
experiencing an inconvenient closeness from the situation,) it had
risen to a degree of elegance concordant to the importance of
the island, and which might cope with many European cities
of the first order and opulence.    It was composed of upwards of
thirty well-formed streets, which crossed each other at right an-
gles, and were many of them elegant.    The houses built of stone
and brick, were frequently handsome and commodious.    It con-
tained also two magnificent squares, those of Notre Dame and
Clugny,   ornamented with fountains; besides public shops, and
long ranges of warehouses, suited to the commercial purposes to
which this scene is dedicated.    The principal public buildings
after  the  church, which  had  not  been erected   many years,
were the government-house, formerly a convent of Jesuits,* the
barracks, arsenal, playhouse, and prison.    There were also, I
believe, two hospitals of a similar nature to our own, and two of
the establishments which Raynal calls houses of Providence.
Whether the Hôpital de la Charité (an alms or work-house), in
the road to L'Haut du Cap, at a small distance from the town,
was of this kind, I am not certain, though I believe it; they were,
however,   as Raynal observed, " truly pious and divine insti-
tutions;" being for the benefit of such Europeans as might
remain in the colony destitute of resources, or who, before they
had acquired by industry, an opportunity to procure subsistence,

* His Royal Highness, the Duke of Clarence, was entertained in this building at the
conclusion of peace in 1783.
became