"Often did the Agent reproach me with having received emigrants, with violating the constitution, and breaking the law. Whatever may have been the reasons of the continual blame which I received from him in regard to conduct in which I found nothing to reproach myself with, I could not ascertain them, and, persuaded that, from the moment. I lost his confidence, I could expect no more good, I asked of you my dismissal. Happy would it have been if it had reached me prior to his departure! He would then have learnt that ambition never was my master, and especially he would not have done me the injury to publish that I desired to terminate my services to France by a crime toward which I was drawn by the men around me who were sold to the English.

        "Whoever those may have been of whom I was obliged to make use to assist me in my important occupations, and without whom even with all the means given by education which I have not received, I could not have performed my functions, I will one day prove that no one less than myself merits the reproach laid at my door by my adversaries, namely, that I allowed myself to be governed.

        "Could it be laid to my charge that I directed toward the public interests, that I employed for the advantage of the public, activity, talents, and genius? And when my secretaries, whom bonds too sacred unite to their mother country to allow a moment's doubt of their attachment to her, are the sole depositaries of my secrets, the sole confidants of the projects which I could not confine within my own breast, why cast on men who will never influence me the blame of the ridiculous intentions imputed to me, and which, never having entered my heart, again prove that I do not allow myself to be governed by the passions of others? If those passions had directed my steps, I should not have foreseen the event which has just taken place; and, walking like a blind man on my political course, I should have asked you for my dismissal.

        "But that step which prudence forced me to take, the only one which could dissipate the storm with which I was threatened,

was very far from restoring confidence in the minds of the people of Saint Domingo. The discontent of the laborers had increased by the compulsion of an engagement for three years. That seemed to them a step back to slavery. They called to mind the means proposed by Vaublanc to establish his system in this colony, and they were surprised that when the Directory had punished that conspirator, its Agent should propose the same measures, should prescribe them, should exact their prompt and full execution. This dissatisfaction, which was fostered, was soon shared by the soldiers. By the discharge of more than three thousand men, effected after the evacuation of the West by the English, I had proved how necessary I thought it to cut down the armaments of the military. I was blamed in that operation, and I received the order not to cut down any troop. Nevertheless, on the departure of the English, it was declared that all the black forces ought to be disbanded in order to be sent back to agriculture, and that European soldiers only should be employed in the defence of the coasts. Then distrust entered the soldiers' hearts, and while previously a part of them had taken the hoe without a murmur, they showed aversion toward a measure which they regarded as an attack on liberty.

        "Whatever were the grounds of distrust with which I was surrounded, however faithful the counsels I received on all parts from the most sincere friends of the prosperity of Saint Domingo, whatever fears were infused into my mind by the crimes contemplated against my person, I did not hesitate to set out for the Cape, and even endeavored to give a proof of my confidence in the highest authorities, by going unattended, except by an aide-de-camp and a cavalry officer; but, having arrived on the Héricourt plantation, I was met by alarming rumors. I learned that at Fort-Dauphin, the fifth colonial regiment--which contributed so much to the restoration of order, to the purification of La Grande Rivière (the Vendée of Saint Domingo), to the expulsion of the English--had become the victim of the European troops, who formerly had delivered up

to foreign powers the points of the colony which had been confided to their defence.

        "Convinced, then, of the bad intentions of the Government in whose names all those horrors were committed; no longer seeing any security for any one who had acquired well-grounded claims to the national gratitude; fearing, with good reason, for my own life,--I turned back and prepared to go and wait at Gonaïves official news of an event, the consequences of which I dreaded. I received a letter from the General Agent, which confirmed my fears, and in which he ordered me to repair to Fort-Dauphin to aid the citizen Manigat, whom he had invested with all civil and military power, in the reëstablishment of order and public tranquillity. I then pressed on to Gonaïves in order to take the escort, of which I had need. The crimes committed by Frenchmen against my brethren forced me to this prudential measure. I left Gonaïves with the fourth regiment; but what was my grief when, on arriving at the Héricourt plantation, I learned that the rising of the laborers had become general, that all the plain was in arms, and threatened the Cape with an immediate irruption. Those who with that design had assembled on the Héricourt estate surrounded me as soon as I arrived, reproaching me with having deceived them in answering for the good intentions of General Hédouville, and attributed to me the slaughter of their brethren at Fort-Dauphin, the arrest of some of them, and the dismissal of General Moyse; and then it was that I received information of all the details of that unfortunate event. Soon I learned that the evil was intruding into all the parishes, and that the people required that General Hédouville should be sent away, the restoration of General Moyse to his rights, and the liberation of the officers of the fifth regiment, made prisoners in the affair at Fort-Dauphin, &c.

        "Whatever pain I felt at the excesses committed against a corps respectable for its services, and against officers whom I knew always attached to their duties, against a chief who never failed in his attachment to France and to the principles of

liberty,--my own nephew,--I regarded in so alarming an event only the imminent dangers to which the public interests were exposed. I sent on all sides faithful emissaries to calm the agitated minds of men; to announce to them my arrival, and to require of them to do nothing without my orders. I hastened to set myself in opposition to the enterprises of the more senseless, who had already taken possession of the heights of the Cape and of Fort Belair which commands the city. With difficulty could I make my way through the crowds; an immense influx of people, whom the blind desire for revenge had armed, covered all the roads which led to the Cape, and threatened that city with the greatest calamities. Frightened at the abyss, on the brink of which the city stood, I ran to draw it back. In my course, I learned that the General Agent had gone on board the fleet. Surprised at the news, I hastened to the Cape, which I reached with difficulty, after having, sometimes by prayers, sometimes by menaces, stopped the torrent with which it was threatened to be inundated. The astonishment caused by the departure of General Hédouville was changed into grief when I learned that that Agent, alarmed, doubtless, at the dangers to which he had exposed the public weal, and despairing of any longer being able to conserve it, had resolved to go away, and that, to color his pusillanimous flight, he had proclaimed that I was aiming at independence.

        "The terror having augmented, more than eighteen hundred persons followed the Agent in his flight. He ordered the cannons to be spiked. The command was being executed, when there arose a cry 'To arms!' The troops drawn out in battle array were moved by the cry; they were pacified by their leaders; had a single musket been fired, the city would have perished.

        "Strong in my conscience, I shall not remind you, Citizen-Directors, of all I have done for the triumph of liberty, the prosperity of St. Domingo, the glory of the French Republic; nor will I protest to you my attachment to our mother country, to my duties; my respect to the constitution, to the laws of the

Republic, and my submission to the government. I swear to you I am faithful, and my future conduct, more than all oaths, will prove to you that I shall always be faithful.

        "If the defence of my cause, that of the freedom of my brethren, needed cunning and intrigue and manly eloquence, in order to triumph over my enemies, I would give it up and weep over France; but, as I am persuaded that it is sufficient to present the truth for it to be apprehended by the republican government, I am satisfied with setting before you an exposition of my conduct, and of that of General Hédouville, and repose on your justice for the verdict which is to result.

        "As soon as I had reëstablished the public tranquillity, I sent to the Commissioner Roume--your delegate in what was formerly the Spanish part of this island--to entreat him in the name of the public safety to come and take the reins of government thrown up by General Hédouville; persuaded that his determination will be conformed to the wishes of all good Frenchmen, I impatiently await his arrival, in order to aid him with all my power in the important functions of his new position."

        The appeal of justice and rectitude prevailed. The Directory were satisfied with Toussaint's self-justification. More might have been expected; more ought to have been given. But suspicions began to prevail in France to the disadvantage of the negro emancipator. The purer his conduct, the more heroic his life, the greater was his crime; for his real crime was his power, and that power was the natural and inevitable consequence of his virtuous and high-minded career.

CHAPTER XI.

        Civil war in the South between Toussaint L'Ouverture and Rigaud--Siege and capture of Jacmel.

        IN quitting the shores of Hayti, Hédouville threw a torch of discord amidst the excitable population. Not only did he cause alarm by declaring that Toussaint was preparing to betray the colony to the English, but he called forth the slumbering passions of the men of color, by intimating that with them lay the power and the duty of traversing his treacherous designs. He even addressed a letter to their leader, Rigaud, in which he formally set that mulatto General free from his obligations to Toussaint as Commander-in-chief, and requested him to assume the command of the Southern Department. This was nothing less than an invitation to civil strife. A correspondence took place between L'Ouverture and Rigaud. According to what he believed to be his duty, the former acquainted the latter with the departure of Hédouville, and exhorted him to pursue such a course as would promote the general weal. Rigaud, evading the real point at issue, brought into prominence the alleged partiality of Toussaint toward the emigrants, whom he requested him to drive away.

        The request, of course, remained without effect, but it served as a pretext to the jealousies of Rigaud. Again did trouble take possession of the popular mind. The fear became the greater because Rigaud urged on Toussaint severity toward the proprietors, whereas the latter had determined to pursue his course of administering equal justice to men of all colors, so long as they proved themselves good citizens. In this state of excitement, Toussaint L'Ouverture invited the Commissioner Roume to repair to the seat of government in order to fill the

post vacated by Hédouville. In this step he gave effect to a decree of the Directory. Roume appeared at the Cape on the 12th of January, 1799. Toussaint, though suffering from sickness, repaired thither to confer with him a few days afterward. The two chief authorities in the island came to an amicable understanding after mutual explanations. Entering into the large and philanthropic views of L'Ouverture, Roume pronounced him "a philosopher, a legislator, a general, and a good citizen."

        Anxious to scatter the clouds which overhung the horizon, Roume called together the chief captains of the island. In order to excite attention to the conference and commemorate the event, public festivities were celebrated. At the foot of the tree of liberty, planted in the great square, and surrounded by generals, Roume delivered a speech, in which he recommended peace, union, love of the republic, and self-sacrifice. He pronounced eulogies on the army, extolling the success of its arms against the enemies of France, and declared that the most perfect union existed between the generals, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Rigaud, Biassou, Laplume, and the other military chiefs. The following day, business was entered into in earnest. The representative of the French Government requested Rigaud to cede certain portions of the territory which was under his control. The request looked like a concession to Toussaint L'Ouverture. Jealousy sprang into activity in Rigaud's mind. After a warm discussion, and some time for reflection, the mulatto chief gave in his resignation. Roume replied, urging its withdrawal. The request prevailed, and Rigaud set out for the South. On his way, he evacuated Grand Goâve and Petit Goâve,--a portion only of what had been required,.--which L'Ouverture caused his troops to occupy. The storm had receded; by no means had it passed away. The colonists rallied around L'Ouverture; for they had not forgotten that it was from the efforts of the free men of color to gain equality of political rights, that the revolution had proceeded, which had changed the face of the island. They stirred up divisions among the blacks and the

men of mingled blood. On their part, the men of color were displeased at seeing the supreme command settled in the hands of an African of pure blood, and flocked around the standard of Rigaud. The blacks, under the protection of the Government and Toussaint, beheld the gathering clouds not without excitement, yet in confidence; nor were they unwilling, after so many victories, to try a last fall with their special foe.

        The contest began with extremes; free white men fought with black slaves. Its intervals have disappeared. The circle has narrowed. Those who are nearest each other are about to join in conflict. The black will fight with those who are a little less black than himself; therefore, this will be the deadliest combat of all. The two parties stand and look at each other like inflamed beasts of prey. Which will make the first spring?

        The mulatto, to the qualities of pride and meanness, adds singular strength of muscle and impulse of passion. Conscious of power, he also feels within him boiling emotions. If victory depended on a dash, he would be master wherever he dwells. But the very exuberance of his nature precludes caution and banishes prudence; and in the impetuosity of his rush he incurs as much peril as he occasions. Impatient of delay, he pays for momentary advantages by speedy and irretrievable defeat. Yet the same unbridled will which brings disaster nourishes vindictiveness; he is therefore ever prepared, if not panting, for revenge. The fight, consequently, is renewed, but without a change of result; and so life passes away in extravagant and disappointed efforts.

        The mulattoes of Hayti could not restrain their wounded feelings. The opposition to the Government broke out at Corail, a small village in the Southern Department. The men of color, gaining the upper hand, threw into prison, at Jérémie, thirty of their prisoners, consisting of one colonist and nine-and-twenty blacks. Then was reënacted the tragedy of the Black Hole in Calcutta. The prisoners perished from bad air. Premeditation was imputed to the mulattoes; of culpable in

consideration and blind passion they were guilty. "In all movements," remarked L'Ouverture, "the blacks are the victims." This dark event rendered the continuance of peace impossible. Both sides prepared for war. Toussaint, with a foresight becoming his position, looked calmly at the probable wants of the island in general. Hayti was indebted for the food of its inhabitants chiefly to importation. The condition of France gave small hope of sufficient supplies. War, too, would suspend the operations of agriculture in the island. He therefore negotiated a commercial treaty with the United States.

        The conflict began with an attack by Rigaud's troops on Petit Goâve, the surrender of which had been obtained in the conference at the Cape. The place fell and the colonists were all ruthlessly massacred. Profiting by the success, Rigaud advanced and took up a position against Grand Goâve. Hastening to Port-au-Prince, Toussaint justly accused Rigaud with having first drawn the sword, and made preparations for the campaign. Having called the mulattoes together into the church, he ascended the pulpit and laid bare their bosoms, foretelling his own success and the ruin of their cause. "I see," he said to them,--"I see to the bottom of your souls; you are ready to rise against me, but although all the troops are quitting the West, I leave behind my eye and my arm,--my eye, which will watch you; my arm, which, if necessary, will fall upon you."

        A mulatto plot, which extended even to the North, had put the keys of Port-au-Prince into the hands of a traitor. L'Ouverture was a prisoner in a town which he thought his own. But his decision and courage were equal to all crises. He discovered the snare, punished the criminals, and then, with the fleetness and the force of the eagle, flew back over his own territories, and forcing strongholds and capturing towns, went as far to the northwest as Saint Nicholas, which he brought back to its duty. The men of color were smitten with consternation, and many of them, having been captured in the several collisions, suffered indignities the most humiliating. Suddenly

Toussaint returned to the Cape. The guilty thought the hour of their doom was come. The high-minded victor invited the inhabitants to meet him at the church, and there, besides a concourse of people, all the civil and military authorities assembled. The garrison, which consisted of black troops, surrounded the place; and under the guard of a picket of soldiers in the church were the men of color, almost naked, and in extreme dejection. Toussaint L'Ouverture ascended an elevation, pronounced a eulogium on the forgiveness of injuries as the duty of every Christian, and then, proclaiming the pardon and the freedom of all the mulattoes, he distributed clothes and money to them severally, and gave strict injunctions that, on their way to join their families, they should be protected and treated as brothers. This unexpected generosity produced the most lively enthusiasm. As he left the church, benedictions were showered on his head.

        While at the Cape, admiration at Toussaint's clemency was universal; the mulatto insurgents in the South only fought the more strenuously, in order to make up by military advantage that which L'Ouverture had gained by wise moderation. No wars are so bitter or so bloody as those of class, caste, and color. The fact was illustrated in this terrible conflict. With such bitterness and ferocity did it range, that Toussaint was compelled to employ all his influence to recruit his ranks. To the blacks he might look with confidence, as the war was specially for their benefit; but the blacks began to grow alarmed as the sanguinary struggle proceeded. The whites in the North and the West, who had hitherto been exempt from the service, were marshalled at the Cape, and sent into the South, to take part in a contest in which they had only a remote interest. A mute consternation prevailed. Scarcely was the conflict spoken of in the intercourse of private life, and the periodical press transcribed the reports of the several chiefs without permitting themselves to add any comments or reflections. Every one not actually engaged in the warfare feared to compromise himself, lest he should bring on his head the vengeance of the conqueror.

Yet prudence did not prevent complications of all kinds, nor could Toussaint's mercy preclude horrors the most distressing. Rigaud, boundless in resources as he was brave and daring, put forth all his energy, and maintained his position at every cost. Toussaint, with a prowess not inferior to Rigaud's, was equally vigilant and equally bold. Yet was he unable to guard against all strategems. In the recesses of the mountains near Port-de-Paix, as he made his way with few attendants, he found that he had fallen into an ambuscade. A discharge of musketry rattled around his head; his physician fell dead at his feet. The plume of feathers which he wore was shot away, and he himself escaped as if by miracle. Saved from one, he shortly after was exposed to another ambuscade. The shots were directed at his carriage; the coachman was killed; he himself rode tranquilly on horseback a few paces distant. In the midst of perils, Toussaint L'Ouverture persevered. Yet he obtained only partial success. The troops of Rigaud, if fewer in number, were individually superior to the hasty levies of Toussaint, and collectively better disciplined. Many of them had long fought under their chief, and were conversant with all the resources and requirements of the war in which they were engaged. With the country in which the conflict was waged they were intimately acquainted, and of the character of their leader they knew enough to be aware that only defeat would bring discredit or occasion displeasure. Having to overcome such an enemy, Toussaint L'Ouverture found it necessary to put forth his utmost power, the rather as he had to hold possession of a wide extent of country, and that with troops of whom the bulk were of an inferior caste. Painful is it to read the alternations of defeat and victory in this terrible contest, especially as on both sides they were accompanied by acts of cruelty The only relief that the mind can obtain in going through the now tedious, now revolting details, arises from the reflection that had such amount of effort and such patience of suffering as these events show man to possess been employed, as happily one day they may be employed, in some cause of

high benevolence, some undertaking to save and not to destroy men's lives, the results would have been no less satisfactory than glorious indeed. The terror inspired by Rigaud's successes and ferocity drove the laborers from the fields into the forts; from the forts they were driven into the towns; when one town was taken, they escaped into another. Then they assembled together to concert and make attacks. Thus the country was a desert, the cities overflowed. While agriculture was at a stand-still, provisions were often destroyed, and while no supplies came from the country, the dense masses aggregated in the towns experienced want. The want arose to famine in Jacmel, lying on the southern side of the tongue of land which forms the Southern Department. Jacmel, on the seashore, formed the key of the district. It was under the power of Rigaud, commanded by Birot. Resolved to capture the place, which was capable of affording an obstinate resistance, Toussaint himself sat down before it. With the utmost difficulty were the preparations for the siege made. Women and children were employed to convey ammunition. Bands, amounting to six thousand laborers, drew huge pieces of cannon along frightful precipices, and down roads, the most rugged, broken, and dangerous. At length, the troops were collected, and Jacmel was invested, so far as the sea would permit. Soon the harbor also was blockaded. Then the terrors of famine began to be experienced. So intense and various were the sufferings, that the officers at length determined to capitulate. The determination was opposed by the soldiers, who declared resistance still possible. The commander, with two of his staff, embarked in the night and escaped to Cayes. His post was assumed by Gauthier. The siege was pressed with vigor. Post after post was taken. Meanwhile, Rigaud neither came up to aid, nor operated a diversion. Then Petion, apprised of the critical position of the town, determined to assume the perilous command, and, with three vessels and some provisions, succeeded in making his way into the port, under the discharges of firearms from the enemy's posts. Entering into the duties he had

voluntarily undertaken, he employed all his ability in the defence. But an enemy was at work over whom he had no power. The famine reached such a height, that the inhabitants were compelled to eat the horses belonging to the cavalry. Every green thing was torn up and devoured. Those thought themselves happy who, in their search for food, met with a rat or a lizard. In the public highways, famished men scarcely recognized each other. Frenzy and wailing filled every place. Mothers, worn down by want, fatigue, and woe, lay in the streets, with their dead infants on their exhausted breasts. At length Petion, seeing that further resistance was impossible, resolved to cut his way through the besiegers. In order to inspire his soldiers with his own courage, he tore the flags from the staffs, and commanded his men to bind strips of them round their bodies, so that if they perished they might still be faithful to their colors. Jacmel fell, and its fall was a heavy blow to Rigaud. Having taken possession of Jacmel, Toussaint L'Ouverture addressed to the inhabitants of the Southern Department the following proclamation:--

        "CITIZENS: By what fatality is it, that, hitherto deaf to my voice, which invites you to order, you have listened only to the counsels of Rigaud? How is it possible that the pride of a single person should be the source of your evils, and that to flatter his ambition, you are willing to destroy your families, ruin your property, and bring yourselves into disgrace in the eyes of the whole world?

        "I repeat to you for the third and last time, that my quarrel is not with the citizens of the South, but solely with Rigaud, inasmuch as he is disobedient and insubordinate; whom I wish to bring back to his duties, that he may submit to the authority of a chief whom he can no longer disown. You ought not to have supported in his misdeeds a proud soldier who evidently raised the standard of revolt. You ought to have left me free to act, since I had a right to reprimand and even to punish him. This Rigaud knew well; but, too haughty to bow before

the organs of the law, he has employed every means to seduce you and to retain you as accomplices. Consult your conscience; put away all prejudices; you will then easily know that Rigaud has desired to drive into revolt all men of color, in order to make them his partisans and coöperators. I need not remind you of the means he has taken for the purpose, and the resources he has employed to deceive you all. You know as well as I, perhaps better than I, his destructive projects, and all he has attempted to put them into execution; he pretended to command blacks and whites without being willing to be commanded by them. Yet the law is equal for all. Painful experience ought to have torn from your eyes the veil which hides the brink of the precipice. Give, then, close attention to what you are about to do, and the danger which you still run. Reflect on the perils and the calamities which threaten you, and hasten to prevent them. I am kind, I am humane, I open to you my fatherly arms. Come, all of you; I will receive you all; no less those of the South than those of the West, and of the North, who, gained over by Rigaud, have deserted your firesides, your wives, your children, to place yourselves at his side. And Rigaud himself,--that ambitious man,--if he had followed the advice which I gave him, to submit to his lawful superiors,--would he not now be tranquil and peaceful in the bosom of his family? Would he not be firm and untroubled in the command which was intrusted to him? But, mastered by deadly passions, Rigaud has dug a gulf at your feet; he has laid snares which you could not avoid. He wished to have you as partisans in his revolt; and to succeed in his object he has employed falsehood and seduction. If you carefully examine this artful but very impolitic conduct you cannot but declare that Rigaud does not love his color, and that he had rather sacrifice it to his pride and ambition than labor for its happiness by good example and wise counsels. And in truth, citizens, the greater number of those whom he has misled have perished, either in battle, or on the scaffold. Must not the others who persist in this revolt expect a similar fate if they abjure not their culpable error?

You may be well assured that if humanity did not direct the actions of a chief attached to his country as well as to his fellow-citizens, and more disposed to pardon than to punish, the calamity would be still greater. It belongs to you to prevent its augmentation. In consequence, I invite you, citizens, to open your eyes and to give serious attention to the future. Reflect on the disasters which may ensue from longer obstinacy. Submit to lawful authority, if you wish to preserve the South untouched. Save your families and your property.

        "But if, contrary to my expectation, you continue to support the revolt raised and propagated by Rigaud, in vain will you reckon on the fortifications he has constructed. The army of Toussaint L'Ouverture, led by generals whose bravery you know, will assail you, and you will be conquered. Then, not without grief, and in spite of my efforts, shall I see that you have been the unhappy victims of the pride and ambition of a single man. I will say more. Desiring to put an end to the evils which have already too long afflicted this unfortunate colony, and wishing to prove to the French nation that I have done everything for the safety and happiness of my fellow-citizens, if Rigaud--though the author of these troubles--presents himself in good faith, and without stratagem, and acknowledges his fault, I will still receive him. But if Rigaud persists, and if be refuses to profit by my offer, do you, fathers, mothers, families,--do you all come. I will receive you with open arms. The father of the prodigal son received his child after be had repented."

        This merciful invitation was not without effect on the population of the South. Rigaud himself, however, had gone too far to return. He was committed to the rebellion, and felt both compelled and disposed to abide the result. In order to counteract the loss of Jacmel, and the appeal of Toussaint, he made extraordinary exertions to raise in mass the population under his sway. On his side, L'Ouverture prepared to prosecute his advantages and terminate the disastrous war.

CHAPTER XII.

        Toussaint endeavors to suppress the slave-trade in Santo-Domingo, and thereby incurs the displeasure of Roume, the representative of France--He overcomes Rigaud--Bonaparte, now First Consul, sends Commissioners to the island--End of the war in the South.

        BUT Toussaint L'Ouverture found troubles and hindrances in an unexpected quarter. During the fratricidal war which deluged the South with blood, the horrible traffic of the slavetrade was revived on the east of the island. This commerce, originated by Jean François and Biassou, continued after their disappearance from the political scene, and went on constantly increasing. Young blacks, stolen in the North were conveyed to the city of Saint Domingo, where they were shipped for Porto Rico and Havanah, there to bear the yoke of slavery. Many of the old officers of Jean François pursued this as their only means of subsistence.

        Aware that representations had in vain been made against these barbarities at the court of Madrid, and indignant that slavery, when nearly extinguished in its old form, should be revived in a new and even worse one, Toussaint wrote (Dec. 25, 1800), from the walls of Jacmel to the Agent, Roume, urging him, as the only effectual means of putting a stop to the evil, to take possession of the Spanish part of the island, conformably to treaty. Under the pretext that it was necessary to await the arrival of some European troops, Roume postponed the execution of the request. Toussaint was too versed in politics not to be aware that the ostensible postponement was in reality a refusal. He also became aware that Roume's adviser was one who owed no good-will to himself. That person, being invited to give an account of his conduct, emigrated to Porto Rico,--

justifying the suspicion that he had interested motives for promoting the continuance of the infamous traffic.

        This event, in which L'Ouverture appears to fresh advantage, and acted in agreement with the general tenor of his public life, occasioned an estrangement between him and Roume. The Agent had conceived the plan of conquering the English possessions in the West Indies. On an enterprise of such a nature and magnitude, he ought to have consulted, and, if he were willing, employed, the Commander-in-chief. But, either to show his independence of Toussaint L'Ouverture, or to put a public insult on him, he passed by that General, and confided to Marshall Bese the command of an expedition against Jamaica. In order to pave the way, he sent into the island two men of determined character,--a white and a mulatto. Those emissaries were denounced, taken, and hanged. The event interfered with Toussaint's operations; for the English captured a flotilla which he intended for the blockade of Jacmel. From this time, there existed a rupture between Roume and Toussaint. Criminations were exchanged. Each threw impediments in the way of the other. Toussaint could not regard Roume as a sincere friend of his race. Roume affected to believe that Toussaint had sympathies in favor of the English, with whom France was at war. At last, Roume demanded a vessel to convey him to France.

        As soon as Toussaint had become master of Jacmel, he proceeded to the Cape, and in an interview with the Agent, reproached him, in the presence of his staff, with being an enemy to the colony and to the liberty of the blacks. He further required him to give an order for the occupation of the East,--resolved to put down the slave-trade, of which that was the centre. Roume refused compliance. The consequence was, that he apprehended the Agent, and sent him to prison. The expedient prevailed. The order was given. Toussaint dispatched General Agé to Santo Domingo, and returned to finish the war in the South. A regular campaign was begun. The rebels were defeated, and abandoned several posts, the

retention of which was indispensable to their safety. Rigaud saw his star grow pale. Most of his superior officers abandoned him. Desertion spread through the ranks. On the other side, Toussaint appeared amid his troops, radiant with victory. He brought with him pecuniary resources. With these, he distributed pay among the soldiers; and so, while supplying their wants, gained their confidence, and excited their enthusiasm.

        The two armies sat down opposite each other. Skirmishing began. Then serious rencontres took place. At last, issue was joined, and the revolters suffered a signal defeat. After this trial of strength, Rigaud might be troublesome, but he could not be formidable. Driven to desperation by his failures, he ordered his men to lay waste the country, and, to use his own words, to take such steps that "the trees should have their roots in the air." His old hands, thinned by war, sickness, and age, became Rigaud's sole reliance. On every side his cause was abandoned by the citizens and the civic authorities. Thus was he reduced to a leader of banditti. He saw his position, and issued this proclamation,--it was his last word to the public:--

        "Considering the crisis in which the Department is, owing to the unjust and inhuman war carried on against it by the traitor Toussaint L'Ouverture, from whom no one must expect either safety or honor, I am obliged, in the position I hold, to take the only measures that remain to save the Department: considering, moreover, that proposals for peace, or for suspension of arms, directly concern the executive power, and that, in all cases, it is to the chief of the armed force of the Department that the right belongs of proposing peace or suspending arms, because he ought to seize the moment favorable for proposals of the kind, which, if made in critical junctures, and by those who have not the means of putting a stop to the evil, may imbolden the enemy, and cause calamities he would have avoided.

        "For now a year this war has been going on; the popular bodies and the pretended friends of peace have taken no step to stop its course. At the present, when the enemy has had

some success, and when terror has taken possession of feeble and timid minds, they fancy that a monster thirsting for human blood, an ungrateful wretch, a traitor toward the Republic, his benefactor, the devastator of Saint-Domingo, the executioner of the parish of Jacmel, the persecutor of all the French Agents,--finally, the slave of the English,--that he only can grant a peace or a suspension of arms. Citizens of the Southern Department, undeceive yourselves, if you think that anything else than arms can save you, while you wait for the intervention of the French Government, to whom those differences between the South and the other departments have been referred. Be well assured, my fellow-citizens, that I have your tranquillity and your happiness too much at heart not to seize all opportunities to procure for you peace or a suspension of arms; and, if the enemy adhere not to the proposals which, in proper time and place, I shall think it my duty to make to him, I shall know how, with the aid of my brave comrades, to make war on him even to extinction. Resume your courage. If he is powerful in numbers and resources, your fellow-citizens, composing the Southern army, possess courage and honor, and will find means to secure your safety.

        "Under these circumstances, and employing the powers confided to me, I make these provisional arrangements, which are to be punctually executed; and accordingly ordain:--

        "Article 1. The municipal government of the South shall for the future restrict themselves to the simple but useful functions of verifying births, marriages, and deaths; but all municipal deliberations, all assemblies, as well as deputations to the enemy, are interdicted. The municipalities shall only lay before me the wishes of their fellow-citizens, to which I will give replies.

        "Article 2. Parochial assemblies may take place after permission has been obtained from the commander of the Southern Department.

        "Article 3. Before legal permission is given, if there are meetings, whether of individuals or of parishes, in the cities, or in the country, martial law shall be forthwith proclaimed, and

the chief of the armed force of the district is authorized to put his troops in movement to put down the said meetings; he shall begin with mild measures, and then employ severity, if he is forced to it.

        "Article 4. The greatest vigilance shall be observed toward the disturbers of the public peace, and against secret disorganizers; the proprietors shall be protected, and their property shall be respected. The national armed police shall be in permanent activity in the interior, and those who shall be denounced for any crime against order and safety shall be apprehended and tried by a council of war, and punished according to the laws."

        This manifesto, the spirit of which is even worse than its logic and its grammar, served only to show how undone Rigaud was, and how necessary that all who had any regard for themselves or the public good should abandon the desperate gladiator. His bands, however, were unwilling to yield. Blood, therefore, flowed in streams. The old men of the South are said still to shudder when they think of that conflict, which they designate "the war of the knife," thus showing to what extreme means the combatants resorted in their deadly hatred and murderous strife. The proclamation was scarcely anything more than the half-articulate words of a man who was staggering to his fall. Two more serious conflicts tried, and lost, and Rigaud's star went down below the horizon.

        While, during the weeks and months of a long year, these frightful scenes of mutual carnage had been covering one of the finest parts of Hayti with corpses and ruins, the Directory in the mother country, too much occupied with its own divisions and party interests, gave no attention to the distracted colony. A change was at hand. Bonaparte, hastening from Egypt, overturned the Directory, and snatched the reins of power. Having taken his seat, he called around him (Dec. 2, 1799,) those who were thought to be conversant with the condition of the colony, in order to discuss the means of restoring peace within its borders. The representatives of Toussaint and of Rigaud were alike heard. Shortly after, a decree was issued, by which

Vincent, Raymond, and Michel were deputed to Hayti, in order to carry thither the Consular Constitution and a proclamation addressed to the inhabitants. Rigaud was recalled to France. Toussaint L'Ouverture was confirmed in his post as General-in-chief.

        The proclamation was far from inspiring confidence or promoting tranquillity among the blacks, since it postponed and deferred to another legislative act the promulgation of the laws which were to govern Hayti. Michel, dissatisfied with the bravery of Toussaint L'Ouverture, returned into France. Raymond, whose mulatto's skin made him an object of suspicion, was ordered to remain at the Cape. Vincent alone was received with confidence. He presented to the Commander-in-chief the new Constitution, a letter written from the Minister of Marine, and the proclamation of the Consuls. In the proclamation were these words: "Brave blacks, remember that the French Republic has given you liberty, and that it only can cause that liberty to be respected." These words, it was ordered, should be inscribed in letters of gold on all the flags of the colonial national guard. Toussaint manifested no haste either to publish the proclamation or embroider the sentence on the colors. How could he promulgate a known falsehood? The Republic had not given freedom to the blacks. The blacks, under their able leader, had extorted freedom from the hands of their masters. Toussaint, who was well informed of the views and intrigues regarding the colony which were nourished in Paris, knew that his ruin had been resolved on before the self-elevation of Bonaparte to the Consulship. Had the ill-feeling passed away? Why, then, had not the First Consul written to him under his own signature? Distrust and disquietude prevailed in the relations of L'Ouverture and the representatives of the new Government in France. It is true that Rigaud was disowned, but Toussaint was not cordially embraced; nor were the rights of the blacks frankly recognized and legally settled.

        As soon as he had given audience to Vincent, Toussaint

L'Ouverture set off for the seat of the not yet wholly terminated war. After a few days, he sent for Vincent, in order that the chief civil and military powers should be on the spot. In the hope of bringing the business to an amicable termination, the General induced Vincent, accompanied by a black man and a man of color, to go on a deputation to the revolters, who yet stood out. He put into the hands of the deputies an act of amnesty in favor of all who had taken part in the war, not even Rigaud excepted. The deputies reached Cayes, where Rigaud held his headquarters. The city, exhausted by so long and so disastrous a conflict, heard with pleasure of the object of their mission. Rigaud was quickly informed of the arrival of the deputies. On reading the dispatch, he flew into the most violent passion. The outburst was so violent as to endanger Vincent's life. That Agent, however, was the bearer of a letter from Rigaud's son, to whom he had shown the kindest attentions, and who declared to his father the gratitude he felt in return. The mulatto chief eagerly threw his eyes over the lines. All at once his wrath ceased. But the warrior soon overcame the father. Vexation took the place of vengeance. He would not live; he could not endure to live. Again and again he tried to kill himself. At length he was calmed down, and ere many days he quitted Saint Domingo for the shores of France. Thither he was accompanied by Petion and some of his principal officers. The other mulatto chiefs emigrated to various parts of the archipelago of the Antilles.

        Thus terminated the war in the South. With that war every obstacle to the freedom of the blacks disappeared. One after the other had hindrances and opposition been swept out of the way by the strong hand of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the negro champion of the negro race. Against the colonists, against the Spaniards, against the English, against the mulattoes, against the French representatives, and in a measure against blacks themselves, had he, by prudence, perseverance, and prowess, by singleness of aim, by unity of purpose, by personal efforts the most astounding, and a union of skill, caution, and daring

rarely equalled, vindicated the freedom of the Africans in Hayti. There was yet a stronger power. Religion, in its relation to the grand work he had undertaken, rose in his breast to enthusiasm. In some sense he was, he believed, God's envoy and God's agent in the fierce and sanguinary struggle. In that conviction he found light and strength which had, to him, the vividness and the authority of what, in a qualified sense, may be called inspiration. Here was the grand secret of his success. He has himself given an outline of his career, which may appropriately find insertion in this place. "At the beginning of the troubles of Saint Domingo, I felt that I was destined to great things. When I received this Divine intimation I was four-and-fifty years of age; I could neither read nor write; I had some Portuguese coins; I gave them to a subaltern of the regiment of the Cape, and, thanks to him, in a few months I could sign my name and read with ease. The revolution of Saint Domingo was taking its course. I saw that the whites could not endure, because they were divided and because they were overpowered by numbers; I congratulated myself that I was a black man. A necessity was laid on me to commence my career. I went over to the Spanish side, where the first troops of my color had found an asylum and protection. That asylum and protection ended in nothing. I was delighted to see Jean François make himself a Spaniard when the powerful French Republic proclaimed the general freedom of the blacks. A secret voice said to me, 'Since the blacks are free, they need a chief, and it is I who must be that chief, foretold by the Abbé Raynal.' Under this feeling I joyously returned to the service of France. France and the voice of God have not deceived me." These words are reported from memory. As depending on the ear and the tongue, they must be received only in their general tenor. Our narrative, which rests on satisfactory vouchers,, shows that, long prior to the age of fifty-four, Toussaint could at least read. If taken as indicating the defectiveness of his scholarship even at the time when he began his task, they are, doubtless, substantially correct; and their testimony

goes to confirm the unquestionable fact, that not by ordinary human appliances and aids did this extraordinary genius accomplish his meritorious and noble work. *

CHAPTER XIII.

        Toussaint L'Ouverture inaugurates a better future--Publishes a general amnesty--Declares his task accomplished in putting an end to civil strife, and establishing peace on a sound basis--Takes possession of Spanish Hayti, and stops the slave-trade--Welcomes back the old colonists--Restores agriculture--Recalls prosperity--Studies personal appearance on public occasions--Simplicity of his life and manners--His audiences and receptions--Is held in general respect.

        ON the first of August, 1800, L'Ouverture made his triumphal entrance into Cayes. All official honors were rendered to him. Hearts on every side beat with enthusiastic gratitude toward the general benefactor. He ascended the pulpit and proclaimed the oblivion of wrongs. He complained only of the absence of the mulattoes. The sense of their discomfiture was too recent. Two of their chiefs, however, went to meet him afterward, and he received them in a cordial manner. His aim was to direct men's minds from the dark past to the bright future. On the 17th of the month he put forth his proclamation.

        "Citizens,--All the events which have taken place at Saint Domingo during the civil war occasioned by Rigaud are of a nature to merit public attention.

        "Now that they are no longer likely to be renewed, it is of importance to the prosperity of the colony, and to the happiness of the inhabitants, to draw the curtain on the past, in order that we may be occupied exclusively in repairing the evils which, of necessity, have resulted from the intestine war brought forth by the pride and ambition of an individual.

        "A part of the citizens of St. Domingo have been deceived because, too credulous, they did not sufficiently suspect the snares which had been laid to draw them into their criminal

designs. Others have acted in these circumstances according to the impulsion of their hearts. Moved by the same principles as the chief of the revolt, they considered it beneath them to be commanded by a black man. Him they judged it necessary to get rid of, at whatever cost, and they spared nothing to succeed in their object. The ambition of their chief led him to make the country his own. His satellites had at heart nothing so much as to give him aid. For their reward he assigned to them aforehand the offices they were to occupy. They are disappointed in their expectation; and in my quality as the victor, wishing and very ardently desiring to promote the happiness of my native land, penetrated by what is set forth in the Lord's Prayer, 'Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive those who transgress against us,' I have published a proclamation by which I grant a general amnesty. That proclamation is known to you. It has produced the happy result which I promised myself. The Southern Department has returned to its obedience to the laws. Let us forget that bad men had led it away from duty to gratify their criminal passions, and let us now consider only as brothers those who, through their easy faith, dared to turn their arms against the flag of the Republic, and against their lawful chief. I have ordered all citizens to return to their several parishes to enjoy the benefits of this amnesty. Citizens, not less generous than myself, let your most precious moments be employed in causing the past to be forgotten; let all my fellow-citizens swear never to recall the past; let them receive their misled brethren with open arms; and let them in future be on their guard against the traps of bad men.

        "Civil and military authorities, my task is accomplished. It now belongs to you to see that harmony is no more troubled. Do not allow the least reproach on the part of any one against those who went astray but have returned to their duty. Notwithstanding my proclamation, keep an eye on the bad, and do not spare them. The man is unjust, he is inclined to evil rather than good. Firmly put down his perverse designs, and never close your eyes on his conduct and his proceedings. Honor

should guide you all. The interests of our country require it; its prosperity needs peace, true and confiding peace. Such a peace must be your work. On you solely now depends public tranquillity in Saint Domingo. Take no rest until you have secured it. I expect this from your courage and from your devotion to the French Republic."

        The spirit of moderation, the spirit of mercy itself dictated these words. Reference to the late troubles was prescribed by a rigid sense of duty. The reference made in no way exceeds what the occasion demanded, and falls very short of what the evil inflicted by the revolt would have justified. It was of absolute necessity to characterize Rigaud. But how different the tone of Toussaint L'Ouverture compared with the injurious epithets lavished in his proclamation by that mulatto leader against his lawful chief! But even for the bad, L'Ouverture had forgiveness. How terrible a punishment might he now have inflicted on the men of color! Had he been open to the prejudices of caste and skin, he would have let loose on them the desire of retribution, and the thirst for revenge. One word of his, and the race would have been nearly extirpated. Not by their forbearance was he kept from uttering that word; nor by their softened feelings toward the negroes; nor by a confidence that they would no more attempt disturbance; but solely by a regard to his religious duty, and a manly confidence in the right and the merciful.

        "My task is accomplished." And yet he had obtained nothing for himself. The military position he held, as it was won by the sword, so was it necessary to the work he had performed. It was a burden rather than a recompense,--a duty and an obligation instead of an honor. Not for himself, but for his country, did he hold the command of the armies of Saint Donmingo. "My task is accomplished." It is, noble black,--it is accomplished, and accomplished well, if only thou lookest to the weal of Hayti. But hast thou no object of thine own? Opposition can no longer hold up its head. Thy foes are prostrate. Every eye is turned to thee. Every heart is fixed on thee.

Hast thou nothing to ask for thyself? The crown and sceptre of Hayti? Nay, frown not. Other successful warriors have taken regal titles as their due. Nor need thou fear opposition. The Agent is weak and disesteemed. Bonaparte is reaping laurels in Italy. England will be prompt to aid thee. Then consider how much thy race needs elevation. What could so much raise them from the dust? Yes, thou must, as thou canst, be King of Hayti; and thy name, glorious for its military deeds, will be more glorious still as the first of a long line of illustrious sovereigns of negro blood.

        Instead of troubling himself and others in arrangements for placing on his head the bauble of a crown, Toussaint L'Ouverture turned his attention to the condition of the country. Hayti was not yet wholly in the power of France. Though formally ceded to the French, the eastern part of the isle remained under Spanish rule. Not sincere in his wishes to take possession of Spanish Hayti, Roume had sent forces so inconsiderable, that they were easily defeated. On their return, he revoked his order for its occupation. On learning the fact, L'Ouverture was indignant. Was slavery, then, in its worst form, to be established and acknowledged in Hayti? Was the Government to be an assenting, if not a concurring, party? And were all his own labors and sacrifices to be thus frustrated?--frustrated by low self-interest and base intrigues? Could he, who had conquered freedom for the negroes, allow their children to be kidnapped and transported to strange countries and foreign lands, there to be degraded and ruined? Impossible! Yet such was the alternative if Roume retained possession of the civil government; for he had tried what could be done in this matter with Roume by argument and moral influence. The effort had failed, and now Roume had availed himself of his absence, and his absorption in military duties, to reverse a policy in which they had in council come to an understanding. Besides, he had proved himself unfaithful to France, by virtually surrendering a portion of his rightful possessions. In such hands, power could not be safely trusted. And, doubtless, the Home Government

would thank him if Toussaint vindicated his rights and secured its territory.

        Actuated by those considerations, Toussaint L'Ouverture arrested Roume, and sent him to Dondon. On the occasion, he issued this address:--

"Toussaint L'Ouverture, General-in-chief of his fellow-citizens.

        "The duties of the office held by Citizen Roume were, in his quality of representative of the French Government, to consecrate his moral and physical faculties to the happiness of Saint Domingo and to its prosperity. Very far from doing so, he took counsel only of the intriguers by whom he was surrounded, to sow discord amongst us, and to foment the troubles which have not ceased to agitate society. However, in spite of the calumnies which he has continually thrown out against myself, in his letters to France and Santo Domingo, he shall be protected from every penalty. But my respect for his character must not prevent me from taking the proper steps in order to deprive him of the power of again plotting against the tranquillity which, after so many revolutionary concussions, I have just had the happiness to establish. In consequence, and in order to isolate him from the intriguers who have kept him in their shackles, and to respond to the complaints made in respect to him by all the parishes, the brigadier-general Moyse will supply the said Citizen Roume with two carriages and a sure escort, which, with all respect due to his character, will conduct him to the village of Dondon, where he will remain until the French Government shall recall him to render an account of his administration.

"At Cap-Français, 5 Frimaire (26 November), the ninth year (1800) of the French Republic, one and indivisible.

"The General-in-chief, TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

        Roume remained a prisoner at Dondon for several months, and then was permitted by L'Ouverture to return to France by way of the United States.

        As soon as he had removed the impediment, Toussaint L'Ouverture took effectual steps for putting down the slave-trade, and occupying the east of the island. After a few shots, he entered Santo Domingo on the 2d of January, 1801, at the head of 10,000 men, and hoisted the flag of the French Republic on its ramparts, to the salvo of two-and-twenty cannon. He was received at the mansion-house by the chief authorities, who wished him to take, in the name of the Holy Trinity, an oath to govern with wisdom. "Such a course would be proper," he replied, "in an officer appointed by the Court of Madrid, but I am the servant of the Republic. Therefore, I am unable to do what you ask; but I swear solemnly before God, who hears the oath, that I forget the past, and that my watchings and my cares shall have no other object than to render the Spaniards, now become Frenchmen, contented and happy." On the utterance of these words, Don Garcia, the governor, handed him the keys of the city. "I accept them," said Toussaint, "in the name of the French Republic;" and then turning toward the assembly, he added, with an humble voice, "Let us go and thank the Author of all things for having crowned with the greatest success our enterprise, prescribed by treaties and the laws of the Republic." Followed by the Governor and all the Spanish authorities, he went to the cathedral, where a Te Deum was chanted in token of gratitude to God.

        Thus, from Cape Samana in the East to Cape Tiburon in the West, the power of Toussaint L'Ouverture was everywhere established and acknowledged. Knowing the favorable effects produced on the popular mind by the progress of distinguished personages in the parts under their administration. Toussaint L'Ouverture traversed the Spanish territory and visited the principal places. He was everywhere received with the acclamations of the people, the merry peal of bells, and the thunders of cannon. The clergy, barefooted, came on all sides to give him welcome. He treated them with profound respect. Within a few days he was master of the obedience of the Spaniards as much as of the confidence of the blacks.

        The union of the Spanish to the French part of Hayti procured reciprocal advantages, the effects of which soon became apparent. The French gained facility in acquiring horses and mules for the cultivation of the soil, and the Spaniards found enormous gain in the exportation of its animals, flocks, and horned cattle. The black regiments, restrained by Toussaint's powerful hand, had done but little damage in the invasion; and those who were left in garrison put large sums of money in circulation. The elements of French administration, which followed the troops, bestowed on the country new principles and sources of industry and wealth. Magnificent roads were formed. Carriages were then for the first time introduced. Even the horses, under the influence of Toussaint's example, improved their pace. Distances were abridged; time was saved; the minds of the people were awakened from torpor; activity universally prevailed, and commerce and riches began to abound. Amid the general excitement, prosperity, and hope, the enthusiasm toward its cause became greater every day, and Toussaint's name was pronounced with blessings by all tongues.

        Having given the command of Santo Domingo to his brother Paul, who had risen by merit to the rank of brigadier-general, Toussaint L'Ouverture returned to the French part of Hayti, and forthwith applied his mind to the condition and wants of the island.

        He was thoroughly acquainted with the theatre on which he had to act, and the character of the people subject to his power. He took the wisest measures to develop the powers of the former, and to gain the confidence of the latter. Aware that he had a mass of prejudices to overcome, and the most tangled web of interests to set in order, he mingled discretion with zeal; and, while aiming at the general weal, forgot not the deference that might conciliate, nor failed in the bland and courteous manners that might win. The old colonists he welcomed to his presence without familiarity, and showed respect even to their prejudices, so far as the public good would permit.

The steward of the plantation on which he had himself been a slave vegetated in the United States. L'Ouverture, being informed of the fact, wrote him an invitation to return to Hayti, to put himself "at the head of the interests of their good old masters." The letter, conceived in a friendly and urgent tone, brought back the steward. Toussaint gave him an interview, and among other things said to him, "Return to the plantation; be just and inflexible; see that the blacks do their duty, in order to add, by your prosperity, to the prosperity of the land."

        The discontinuance of the war led to the resumption of agriculture. The change from the musket to the hoe was of course gradual; but such was the influence and such the determination of the great black, that erelong the rich cultivable districts began to put on a smiling aspect, promising riches as well as abundance. Had the peace continued, the promise would have been realized in the fullest degree. Forthwith, however, did the culture of the soil, besides providing for the wants of the inhabitants, furnish the public treasury with sufficient resources. Intelligence of the returning prosperity reached foreign lands. The colonists who were scattered up and down in those lands saw a ray of hope, and, notwithstanding what they had undergone in Saint Domingo, notwithstanding their dislike of the predominance of the blacks, they invited and gladly accepted permission to return home and resume possession of their estates. Their letters, coming from various countries, and unanimously expressing confidence in the integrity and the power of the General-in-chief, as well as in the justice and excellence of his administration, greatly contributed to strengthen his hands and confirm his authority. Scarcely could a more satisfactory or a more striking proof be given of the claim of Toussaint to our respect and admiration than is found in the readiness with which this class of men embarked their all in the vessel which he commanded.

        The political evils and civil wars that had afflicted Saint Domingo, in causing the expatriation of proprietors, had in

many cases occasioned the loss of traces to the succession. Under Toussaint's orders, the property so circumstanced was secured to military chiefs, and was thus restored to cultivation and productiveness. At the same time, regulations were issued by which the laborers on the estates became a sort of co-proprietors. He had, aforetime, thrown his protection over emigrants, and thereby had brought on himself difficulty and suspicion. He now took into his service subaltern officers of emigrant regiments, and offered protection to those who were unwilling to join his forces. Disregarding color and position in his appointments, he sought in his servants and fellow-laborers for those who were most fitted for the duties of the several offices. If his favor was less marked toward any, it was toward those of his own blood; not because he loved them less, but because, having their confidence, he could employ in relation to them a freedom of word and action which might have been misunderstood by others. With his strong and vivid religious sentiments, he was naturally prompted to pay special regard to the priests, and to the interests of religion in general. Nor, environed as he was by men whose senses were the avenues to their affections, did he neglect personal appearance. Studious in his attire, he surrounded himself with a numerous guard, in which were names distinguished in the olden time. When he went forth in public, he was accompanied by a splendid retinue, which fixed and dazzled all eyes. Surrounded by a guard of from fifteen to eighteen hundred men, brilliantly clad, and having for his own personal use a stud containing hundreds of horses, he appeared before the eyes of the people in the exterior of a prince. But, beneath this imposing show, he himself studied the utmost simplicity. Always temperate, he often carried moderation to abstinence. His iron frame received strength chiefly from the deep and full resources of his vigorous mind. Master of his soul, he had no difficulty in mastering his body. While partaking of none but the most frugal diet, with water for his drink, and vegetable preparations for his meat, he rarely slept more than two hours. The whole energy of his life

was absorbed and consumed in the great task which he had undertaken, and which, in truth, demanded more vital power than even he had to bestow. Though advanced in life, he was incessantly in movement, and travelled with a rapidity which defied calculation and excited amazement. Seeing everything with his own eyes, he had little need to rely on the reports of others; and he at once promoted his independence and augmented his power by deriving his policy and his plans from his own knowledge and his own meditations. Little should we expect to see such a person addicted to the labors of the cabinet. Yet, in replying, by means of several secretaries, to two or three hundred letters daily, he seemed to experience a pleasure as lively as that enjoyed by other men in the satisfaction of the senses.

        As the Governor of the land, Toussaint L'Ouverture felt it necessary to keep up some kind of state. Like other chief magistrates, he had his receptions of ceremony, as well as his less formal audiences. The union of French vanity and negro love of parade in the foremost people made him feel the importance of requiring due attention to appearances and etiquette. Hence, he instituted what bears the name of "circles," at which all who were invited were expected to be present. These circles were of two kinds,--the greater and the less. To the greater, formal invitations were given. Toussaint himself appeared in the assemblies in the undress uniform of a general officer. His simple attire, in the midst of surrounding brilliancy, contrasted favorably with the dignified tone which he knew how to maintain. When he presented himself, all the company, females as well as males, arose from their seats. Attentive even to the proprieties, he showed his disapproval of any exposure of the person in female dress. On one occasion, he was seen to throw his handkerchief over the bare bosom of a lady, saying, "Modesty is the best charm of the sex." After having made the tour of the hall, and spoken to everybody, he withdrew by the door at which he entered, bowing right and left to the company. The less circles were public audiences,

which took place every evening. At these, Toussaint L'Ouverture appeared clad like the ancient proprietors when on their plantations. All the citizens entered the grand saloon, and were, irrespectively of rank and position, addressed by the Governor as convenience served. After having gone round the room, he retired, and took with him into a small apartment in front of his bed-chamber, which he used as a study, the persons with whom he wished to converse more freely and more at length. The greater number of these were the chief whites of the colony. There, seating himself, he requested all others to be seated. Then he proceeded to talk with them of France, of his children, of religion, of his old masters, and of God's grace in giving him liberty, and granting him means for discharging the duties of the post in which he had been placed by the mother country. He also conversed of the progress of agriculture, of commerce, and never of political concerns. He questioned each respecting his own private affairs, and of his family, and appeared to take an interest in the several matters. With mothers, he spoke of their children, and inquired whether they attended to their religious education; and the young he would sometimes briefly examine in their catechism. When he wished to put an end to the audience, he arose and bowed. The company then retired, being attended by him to the door. As they left, he appointed times for special interviews with those who made the request. Then he shut himself up with his private secretaries, and commonly continued his labors far into the night.

        In this practical regard to show and parade, L'Ouverture may have been influenced by his own personal defects. Small in person, he was of a repulsive aspect, and, having a difficult utterance, he spoke with as little elegance as grammar. Yet his were words of power, for they came from a strong soul and were the heralds of a resolute will. A man of few words and powerful imagination, he sometimes uttered his ideas in parables--the rather that in such a form he could the more effectually imprint them on the minds of the rude natures with which

he had to deal. On more occasions than one he took a glass vase, and, having filled it with grains of black maize, he put therein some grains of white maize, and said, "You are the black maize; the whites who would enslave you are the white maize." He then shook the glass, and, placing it before their eyes, he cried, as if inspired, "See the white ones only here and there."

        The army Toussaint L'Ouverture kept under the most vigorous discipline. Every breach of duty was severely punished. Even during the civil wars, plunder was restricted as much as possible. He was, however, adored by his soldiers.

        Scarcely less was the veneration paid him by other members of Haytian life. He won and enjoyed the esteem of the colonists; he was valued highly by the ministers of religion; by the blacks he was regarded as a messenger of God. Even the mulattoes began to look to him with hope and respect.

        The confidence which Toussaint inspired soon produced good effects in the colony. The lands once more cultivated, and cultivated under judicious regulations, became productive, and, as of old, poured forth abundance and wealth. With the spread of industry and the increase of riches, population, which had been greatly diminished in the wars, recovered its impulse and augmented its numbers. A large and prosperous people restored the churches, which had been burnt or allowed to become dilapidated, decorated the cities with fine buildings, enriched the public treasury, cultivated the arts, and erelong indulged in luxury. The general intelligence was raised, and manners were refined. Human nature vindicated itself against his calumniators; for, in a short time, after a period of frightful wasting, the black State of Hayti could endure a comparison with the higher forms of white and European civilization. There was at the Cape, under the name of the Hôtel de la République, an inn, the exterior and interior splendor of which scarcely yielded to the richest establishments of the kind in any part of the world. It was frequented by the principal blacks and by the Americans of the continent. There mere etiquette was

unknown; the most perfect equality prevailed. At the same table sat private individuals and the heads of the State, officers of every rank, men of all conditions. It was frequently visited by L'Ouverture, who took his place, without preference, in any vacant seat; for he often said that distinction of rank ought to exist only in the moment of public service.

        Travellers who visited the island at the beginning of the present century, warriors who played a part in the events of that epoch, agree in declaring that in the society of Saint Domingo the men were polite and the women easy and elegant; that the relations between the sexes lacked neither attraction nor dignity, and that the prejudices of color seem to have lost their former power. The theatre came into vogue; the greater number of the new actors were blacks, and some of them gave proof of talent in comedy and in pantomime. A taste for music became general; the guitar was specially cultivated. Men of negro and mulatto blood not only formed the bulk of the population, but occupied the higher positions. Even the most important duties of the administration were in their hands. Yet life went forward with ease and efficiency. Religion was honored. Morals were at least not inferior to what they are in white society. The arts were cultivated. The elegancies of life were not unknown. Among men and women who had but recently quitted the brutalizing condition of servitude, an ability and a refinement were observed, which you sometimes look for in vain among men who have the reputation of being highly cultivated.

CHAPTER XIV.

        Toussaint L'Ouverture takes measures for the perpetuation of the happy condition of Hayti, specially by publishing the draft of a Constitution in which he is named governor for life, and the great doctrine of Freetrade is explicitly proclaimed.

        THIS happy condition had no guarantee of permanence. True, all was tranquil within the borders of Hayti. One after another had Toussaint L'Ouverture removed hindrances out of the way, until he had succeeded in establishing a universal accord. But would the harmony endure? Its continuance was essential to the full development of the resources of the colony; and, to all appearance, that continuance was the sole prerequisite. As yet, however, there had been no general recognition of the established order. If all were to work for the general good, all must concur in the formation and acknowledgment of a constitution by which the established order might be perpetuated.

        In bringing that constitution into existence, and giving it the force of law, three powers must concur. These three powers were the inhabitants of Hayti, France, and Toussaint himself. Self-government was a recognized right of the colony. The concurrence of France was equally an admitted fact in the colonial government, and L'Ouverture held, under the authority of the mother country, the highest functions in the island. When the question of a constitution assumed a practical shape, it became important to determine with which of these three authorities the initiative should lie. Was the colony to look to France? That question involved another: was France sincere in her acknowledgment of negro freedom? France appeared unworthy of trust. The last dispatches on the matter

of a code of laws for Hayti wore a suspicious aspect, and were generally disliked. And if France wished to give the colony a good code of laws, had she the power? How could the requisite knowledge be possessed by a legislature which sat thousands of miles distant from those who were to obey the laws? Metropolitan government for colonial dependencies is full of evils, arising not only from ignorance and incompetence, but intrigue and corruption. Besides, Bonaparte was now the sole legislative and the sole ruling power in France. The position which Louis XIV. had fancied himself to possess, when he declared himself to be the state,--"L'état, c'est moi,"--the Corsican adventurer had fully realized. The ruling passion of Bonaparte was ambition; his means, resort to force. What had the colony to expect but a coup d'état similar to that which had just suppressed the Directory and concentrated all power in the hands of the First Consul? The thought is said to have disturbed the short hours of Toussaint's repose. The probability was, that the conqueror of Italy only waited the moment of necessary leisure, and that moment, as the event afterward showed, might shortly arrive. Undesirable was it, therefore, to leave the initiative with France. The colony itself must act. Indeed, the colony only could act with wisdom and effect. "But in so doing, the colony was setting up for independence." To take the first step in drawing up a constitution cannot be justly so characterized. A draft of a constitution was only a species of petition. Until sanctioned by legislation, it amounted to nothing more than a bill of rights. It did no more than say, "Here is a formal statement of what will suit us, what will consolidate and augment our existing weal, what we entreat you to send back with the seal of your solemn sanction." And were such a step a step toward independence, who can blame it? If the colony had acquired strength enough to run alone, why should it remain in leading-strings? Nay, the desire for independence, if cherished, was a worthy feeling. Such a desire showed that black men could appreciate liberty, and well deserved the degree of freedom they had already gained. The

rather was a cautious approach to independence praiseworthy, because tokens were not wanting that Bonaparte, in his ambitious passions, had grown impatient of the ascendency of the great negro Haytian. Resolved to be master of the world, he could not endure a rival power, and watched his opportunity to establish his supremacy in the island. The rather was he desirous of establishing the exclusive rule of France there, because Hayti, he felt, could be made a bulwark for hostile operations against the English power in the West Indies.

        Yet was the colony passively and quietly to await the blow? What was this but to invite the blow? Whereas, to propound a constitution, while it ought to give no offence, would prove that the Haytians were sensible alike of their rights and of their power. In the great issue, Toussaint had himself a problem to solve. If, as he had reason to fear, Bonaparte intended his overthrow, was he to submit without an effort? Was he not, as a prudent man and a wise legislator, to enter on such a course as seemed most likely to ward off the blow, and strengthen his own position? As to the necessity of his continuing to hold that position, he could not for a moment doubt. The retention of the position was indispensable to the continuance of the peace in the island. As all mountains had become plains before his energy and determination, so would all be undone if he were removed from the head of affairs; once more the smouldering fires of passion and prejudice would burst into a flame, and a war arise not less bloody and terrific than that which he had so recently brought to a happy conclusion. Yes; there, at the helm, had he been placed by the resistless stream of events, or what to him, nor without reason, seemed the hand of Providence; and there duty, in the clearest and loudest tones, called upon him to remain. This is, in substance, the feeling to which at this time he gave utterance in these terms: "I have taken my flight in the region of eagles; I must be prudent in alighting on the earth; I can be placed only on a rock; and that rock must be a constitutional government, which will secure me power so long as I shall be among men."

Yes; if in any case, certainly in Toussaint L'Ouverture's, was a constitutional dictatorship of indispensable necessity. Rightly did he interpret his position, and well did he understand his duties. This new Moses had brought his people out of Egyptian bondage, and must now give them a code of laws, over the execution of which, for the few remaining years of his life, it is his most solemn duty to watch. Such conduct asks no defence, and admits no excuse. It is positively and highly virtuous, and any other course would have been a betrayal of a sacred duty, a breach of a momentous trust.

        Again the hour of temptation has come. The victorious general who commands universal obedience and enjoys universal respect may become a president or a sovereign. The good principle conquers; Satan is dismissed with a rebuke; the crown is refused; the presidency is deliberately chosen.

        Does the reader think of Washington, who, when he might possibly have become a king, became a private citizen? We are not sure that Washington's means for establishing a throne in the midst of the high-minded republicans of the Anglo-Saxon race were equal to those which Toussaint possessed among the uncultured and recently liberated Haytians, whom nature made fond of parade, and custom had habituated to royalty. The greater the opportunity, the greater the temptation; nor can he be accounted the inferior man who overcame in the severer trial. Nor must it be forgotten, that while Washington could, with confidence and safety, leave his associates to their own well-tried and well-matured powers of self-government, L'Ouverture had, in comparision, but children to deal with and provide for. Would it have been either prudent or benevolent to retire from the oversight of those children at the very moment when they had ceased to do evil and were learning to do well? Clearly, duty, in the most solemn and emphatic tones, demanded the continuance of that fatherly care which had rescued those babes in intellect from impending ruin, and so far led them toward the attainment of individual strength and social excellence. Yes, Toussaint L'Ouverture,

an eagle thou hast proved thyself to be; an eagle's eye shows thee distant but coming realities; may thine eagle's pinion bear thee above danger, and place thee, where thou longest to be, "on a rock,"--the rock of a wisely-constituted and well-governed commonwealth! Then, like thy Hebrew prototype, when at last thou descriest the promised land, and while thou contemplatest its fertility and loveliness, thou mayest depart from "among men," falling to sleep in thy lofty eyrie, and buried on the mountain, which shall be at once thy sepulchre and thy monument.

        We do not possess the materials to determine whether the idea of drawing up a constitution for Hayti originated with Toussaint L'Ouverture himself, or was presented to him as the proper course by his colonial advisers. The determination of the question is of the less consequence since, beyond a doubt, unanimity prevailed to a very great extent between the General-in-chief and the principal authorities and persons in the island. One party, and but one, evinced repugnance to the measure. The small number who represented the views of Bonaparte in the colony were naturally adverse to the constitution. At their head was Brigadier-General Vincent, who employed the influence which excellence of character justly gave him with L'Ouverture to turn him aside from the project. The effort proved nugatory.

        Resolved to persevere in a course which his judgment approved, and his position required, Toussaint L'Ouverture, as possessing the highest authority in the island, called together a council to take into consideration the propriety of drawing up a constitution, and to determine what its provisions should be. The council consisted of nine members. The composition of this deliberative assembly displays the integrity of the General-in-chief. He might have formed it out of his officers. He might have given predominance in it to negro blood. These things, doubtless, he would have done, had he sought his own aggrandizement. But he chose its members among the men of property and intelligence. Of the nine

members, eight were white proprietors, and one a mulatto; not a single black had a seat at the council-board. Even the purest patriotism might have required him to place himself at the head of the council. Its president was the white colonist Borgella, who had held the office of Mayor of Port-au-Prince. The constitution, carefully prepared by this council, was presented to Toussaint L'Ouverture, who, having approved it (May 19th, 1800), sent a copy by the hands of General Vincent to Europe. The draft was accompanied by the following letter, addressed to "Citizen Bonaparte, First Consul of the French Republic (16th July)."

        "CITIZEN CONSUL:--The Minister of Marine, in the account which he has rendered to you of the political situation of this colony, which I have taken care to acquaint him with in the dispatches which I addressed to him, sent by the corvette L'Enfant Prodigue, will have submitted to you my proclamation, convening a central assembly, which, at the moment when the junction of the Spanish part to the French part had made of Saint Domingo one single country, subject to the same government, should fix its destinies by wise laws, framed with special reference to the localities and the characters of the inhabitants. I have now the satisfaction to announce to you, that the last hand has been put to that work, and that the silt is a constitution which promises happiness to the inhabitants of this colony, which has so long been unfortunate. I hasten to lay it before you for your approbation, and for the sanction of the Government I serve. With this view, I send to you Citizen Vincent, general director of fortifications at Saint Domingo, to whom I have confided this precious deposit. The Central Assembly, in the absence of laws, and considering the necessity which exists of substituting the rule of law for anarchy, having demanded that I should provisionally put it into execution, as promising to conduct the colony more rapidly toward prosperity, I have yielded to its desires; and this constitution has been welcomed by all classes of citizens with transports of joy,

which will not fail to be manifested afresh, when it shall be sent back invested with the sanction of the Government. With salutations and profound respect.

"TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

        This constitution, which had been made public and accepted amid solemn formalities and universal joy, was worthy of the cause in which L'Ouverture had risked his life and employed the utmost of his strength. Proceeding on the basis that slavery was abolished and could never more exist in Saint Domingo, and that all men there born were free citizens of the French Republic, it provided that every one, whatever his color, was admissible to all employments, on the special ground that among the citizens there was no other distinction than the distinction of virtue and of ability. Establishing Roman Catholicism as the sole religion to be professed and protected, it recognized the sanctity of marriage by abolishing divorce. It required that agriculture should receive special encouragement, for which purpose measures were to be taken for the increase of the number of laborers. The reins of government it intrusted to one governor, to be appointed for the period of five years, with authority to prolong the term as a recompense for good conduct; and that "in consideration of the important services which General Toussaint L'Ouverture has rendered to the colony, he is named Governor for life, with power to appoint his successor."

        One provision we have advisedly omitted in order to bring it into full relief. In a very short sentence the constitution declares commerce free. Thus free trade was first proclaimed by the negro chief of Hayti. Is any other proof necessary that Toussaint was more than a successful warrior? more than a social liberator? more than a disinterested patriot? His economical views were large and liberal. They were in advance of their age; how much in advance let the fact declare, that nearly a half a century had to elapse before even England obtained the boon which Hayti not only claimed but decreed.

Yet what was there in Toussaint L'Ouverture which may not be found in other negroes? His sole external advantage was that he received some rudimental instruction in the simple arts of reading and writing. Give that advantage to the myriads of blacks that now vegetate and pine in slavery in the United States, and other practical philosophers will appear among them to vindicate the race by wise laws as well as philanthropy and heroism. But "Oh, it is not safe." Safe? yes, much more safe than is the present course, which does but concentrate the lava of the volcano, which, at no distant day, will burst forth, unless precautionary measures are taken, and due preparations be made for lifting slaves into a condition fit for freedom. Surely this lesson is taught in the tenor of the preceding narrative.

BOOK II.

FROM THE FITTING OUT OF THE EXPEDITION BY BONAPARTE AGAINST SAINT DOMINGO TO THE SUBMISSION OF TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.

CHAPTER I.

        Peace of Amiens--Bonaparte contemplates the subjugation of Saint Domingo, and the restoration of slavery--Excitement caused by report to that effect in the island--Views of Toussaint L'Ouverture on the point.

        THE year 1801 did not close without seeing the peace of Amiens definitively concluded. By the treaty then signed, France found herself confirmed in the possessions she had captured during the war, and at liberty to prosecute any enterprise which she might judge required by her position, or likely to conduce to the confirmation of her power. Her destinies were in the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, under the modest title of Consul, concealed designs which already looked to an imperial throne, and ruled the nation and its dependencies with a sceptre more powerful and more despotic than the sway of any contemporaneous legitimate monarch. Born with the qualities which give and insure command, Bonaparte, to a boundless ambition, added a restless activity which constantly prompted new efforts, a thirst for dominion, which as constantly demanded new acquisitions, and a jealousy of power which made rival greatness intolerable. With an evil eye, therefore, did he regard the high position obtained by Toussaint L'Ouverture through his wise and generous efforts in the French colony of Saint Domingo. The brilliancy of his own fame seemed dimmed in his eyes by the glory achieved by a negro chieftain who had been a slave.

        The termination of the war had left unoccupied in France a large body of soldiers, who might be dangerous at home, and whose leaders, in the repose of peace, might trouble his actual position, or prove impediments to his ambitious designs. Dissatisfied with seeing themselves outstripped by a soldier of fortune,

they were ready for political intrigue rather than civil obedience, and would be most safely employed in a distant expedition in which success would increase the number of his own laurels, and failure issue in their permanent removal out of his path. That the climate in which he thought of employing them was destructive to Europeans, was a consideration which could not deter him, and only added another reason why, on his part, he should decide in favor of the attempt.

        Yet, if he left Hayti in the hands of Toussaint L'Ouverture, he would possess, in an army of thirty thousand black troops obedient to their actual commander, the means of countervailing the power of Great Britain in the West Indies, and of controlling its descendants in the United States. The employment, however, of such an ally seemed scarcely compatible with the dignity which he affected; nor was it impossible, if the ruler of Saint Domingo were left undisturbed in his authority, that he might assist the absolute independence of the colony, and either by augmenting his own power or joining the English, inflict a heavy blow on the supremacy of France. Then the question of colonial slavery presented itself for consideration. Should he recognize or nullify the freedom which existed in Saint Domingo? The recognition would bring him no advantage, for Toussaint and his associates considered their work as accomplished. To nullify it would secure on his side the sympathies and coöperation of the colonists who had lost their estates, and who, regretting their past opulence, and believing its recovery impossible in the present state of the island, besieged the cabinet of the Tuileries with importunities for the restoration of slavery. The wise and just held a different language. Even as a matter of policy an expedition to Hayti, they urged, was to be deprecated, for the risk would be very great, and failure would end in disgrace. Those who now held power in the island were men of valor and of great military skill. As administrators of the colony they enjoyed general sympathy and support, and had proved their ability by the prosperity they had called into being. And while it did not become

France, who had gained her own liberty, to suppress freedom in one of her own colonies, it was contrary to the laws of ever-lasting right to tear from men that freedom which they had purchased with their blood, and, by their moderation, proved they well deserved. These diverse views occupied the minds and dwelt on the tongues of men in Paris, according as position, character, or personal interests swayed their bosoms. The Consul heard them all, and kept shrouded in his own dark breast the design which he meditated and was maturing. At the moment Vincent arrived from Saint Domingo, he presented the constitution to the Consul. Here was the spark which that sombre genius desired. "He is a revolted slave whom we must punish; the honor of France is outraged." In vain was it pleaded before Bonaparte that the adoption or rejection of the constitution lay with himself, and that it contained only the expression of the wishes of Toussaint and his fellow-laborers. Bonaparte was too adroit not to seize, and too skilful not to make the most of, the opportunity. His words, which we have just reported, circulated through Paris, and excited a feeling in favor of war. An expedition was decided on. And the popular fervor was increased when the Consul declared in the senate that Toussaint was a brigand chief whom it was necessary to bring to justice. One voice was raised against the undertaking,--a voice in the high places of authority. The minister Forfait, a man of high character, attempted to dissuade Bonaparte by setting before him a picture of the inevitable calamities of such an enterprise. He was silenced by the answer, "There are sixty thousand men that I want to send to a distance."

        And so, from the most unworthy considerations, an armament against a peaceful and flourishing state is to be speedily fitted out. Yet the adventurers call themselves Christians. What but robbery on a large scale is such conduct? And who can believe that the man who decreed that robbery had in his heart any genuine love of liberty?

        Once more, Toussaint L'Ouverture, must you take the buckler and draw the sword. The hero of Europe, and panting for

conquests in another world, comes against you. Once more must the broad, rich plains of your native land resound with the clash of hostile armies, and run with human blood. A cloud is on your countenance. Yet let it pass away. Take courage, noble heart! The coming struggle is only another step in the path of freedom. Necessary is the step, or you would not have to take it. And if the effort is painful, and the prospect dark, weigh well the magnitude of the issues. On the fields of Hayti the battle of your race will be fought out. It is before the eye, not of a few islanders, but of the world, that you are about to try your strength with the Gallic gladiator, and settle the question, once for all, whether Africans are men or brutes, worthy of freedom, or doomed to servitude. Success? No, the settlement of the question depends not on success. You will perish in the combat, yet will you win; your cause will triumph even over your grave. Be just, and fear not.

        Meanwhile, rumors and intelligence brought to Hayti produced sinister impressions, and disturbed the public mind. It appeared probable that slavery would be maintained in the French colonies of Martinique and Cayenne, and that at Saint Domingo France would make an effort for its restoration. Fears began to prevail, disturbances were threatened. Every eye turned to Toussaint L'Ouverture. On his part, he was not without forebodings, which recently had grown into apprehensions. He had written to the Consul, and received no reply. He felt himself humiliated. At times, tears stole from his eyes when he thought of the possibility that Bonaparte meant to undo all that he had done; foreseeing the long train of calamities which would ensue from such an attempt, he was now and then for an instant unmanned, and spoke hasty words. "Bonaparte," he said, "is wrong not to write to me; he must have listened to my enemies, otherwise would he refuse me proofs of his satisfaction? Me, I say, who have rendered greater services to France than any other general? The English and Spanish Governments treat with more regard the generals who have signalized themselves by services of the first order." His fears

and his vexation became greater, and affected his demeanor in a more marked manner, when he heard that preliminaries of peace between England and France had been signed at London. Peace in Europe he saw foreboded war to Hayti.

        What now should be his course? Should he anticipate the blow, and prepare for it by proclaiming the independence of the colony? By rousing its inhabitants to resistance, and marshalling his forces with his own ability and vigor, he might repeal even the attack of France when at peace with the world. And right would such a policy have been. Not impossibly it would have proved successful. But L'Ouverture was not prepared to adopt it. Equal to the demands on his courage and energy which a determination of the kind would make, he was not equal to the requisite demands on his sense of justice. Hayti was a French colony;--as a French colony it had gained its freedom. A free republic would not sanction its subjugation; and should Bonaparte attempt to wrest "the rod of empire" out of his own hands, he had better lose his power than forfeit his self-respect. Any way, the duty of the moment was clear; he must calm men's minds. For that purpose he issued a proclamation (18th December, 1801), which, among other things, declared that it was necessary to receive the orders and the envoys of the mother country with respect and filial regard. Yet, while he encouraged obedience, he could not be insensible to the possibility that resistance might be his duty. He was, therefore, under an obligation to foster the means of resistance, and not only to appear confident himself, but to keep up the spirits of his soldiers. This twofold state of mind is seen in words which he uttered from time to time, as in these: "A well-educated child owns submission and obedience to his mother; but if that mother becomes so unnatural as to seek the ruin of her child, the child must look for justice with Him to whom vengeance belongs. If I must die, I will die as a brave soldier, as a man of honor. I fear no one."

        It did not escape the eye of those who, having access to the President, narrowly watched him, that the agitation of his mind

increased, and had risen to a great height. Catching alarm from these symptoms, some began to take measures for quitting the island. One of the most distinguished creoles of Port-au-Prince, and who afterwards settled in France, was of the number. He one day asked Toussaint in private for a passport, in order to proceed to the mother country. The unexpected request disturbed the President. Hastening to the door, to ascertain if he could reckon on their not being disturbed, he speedily returned and asked, looking his companion fixedly in the face, "Why do you wish to go away? You, whom I esteem and love?" "Because I am white, and because, notwithstanding the good feelings you have for me, I see that you are on the eve of being the irritated chief of the blacks, and that within these few days you are no longer the protector of the whites, since you have just sent out of the island several for having expressed joy that the Europeans were about to come to Saint Domingo." "Yes," replied Toussaint, with warmth; "they have had the imprudence and folly to rejoice at such news, as if the expedition was not destined to destroy me--to destroy the whites--to destroy the colony. In France I am represented as an independent power, and therefore they are arming against me,--against me, who refused General Maitland to establish my independence under the protection of England, and who always rejected the proposals which Sonthonax made on the subject. Since, however, you wish to set out for France, I consent to it; but, at least, let your voyage be useful to the colony. I will send by you letters to the First Consul, and I will intreat him to listen to you. Make him acquainted with me; make him acquainted with the prosperous state of the agriculture and the commerce of the colony; in a word, let him know what I have done. It is according to all that I have done here that I ought, and that I wish, to be judged. Twenty times have I written to Bonaparte, to ask him to send civil commissioners, to tell him to despatch hither the old colonists, whites instructed in administering public affairs, good machinists, good workmen; he has never replied. Suddenly he

avails himself of the peace, (of which he has not deigned to inform me, and which I learn only through the English,) in order to direct against me a formidable expedition, in the ranks of which I see my personal enemies, and people injurious to the colony, whom I sent away. Come to me within four-and-twenty hours. Very ardently do I wish that you and my letters may arrive in time to make the First Consul change his determination, and to make him sensible that in ruining me he ruins the blacks,--he ruins not only Saint Domingo, but also all the Western colonies. If Bonaparte is the first man in France, Toussaint is the first man in the Archipelago of the Antilles." After a moment of reflection, he added, in a firm tone, "I was going to treat with the Americans and the English to procure me twenty thousand blacks from the coast, but I had no other object than to make soldiers of them for France. I know the perfidy of the English. I am under no obligation to them for the information they give me as to the expedition coming to Saint Domingo. No! never will I arm for them! I took up arms for the freedom of my color, which France alone proclaimed, but which she has no right to nullify. Our liberty is no longer in her hands; it is our own! We will defend it or perish."

CHAPTER II.

        Bonaparte cannot be turned from undertaking an expedition against Toussaint--Resolves on the enterprise in order chiefly to get rid of his republican associates in arms--Restores slavery and the slave-trade--Excepts Hayti from the decree--Misleads Toussaint's sons--Despatches an armament under Leclerc.

        IN vain was it that Vincent, who had attempted to dissuade Toussaint against the adventure of a constitution, now employed his honest and prudent arguments to turn aside Bonaparte from the intended expedition against Saint Domingo. Disregardful of the effect which his advice might have on himself, he urged on the Consul that the victorious warriors of Europe would lose their energy, together with their strength, under the climate of the Antilles; that such a climate would annihilate the army, even if the ascendency of Toussaint L'Ouverture over the inhabitants did not succeed in destroying it by arms; he added the consideration of the probability that the English would openly or secretly endeavor to traverse his object, and frustrate his attempt. To the last remark Bonaparte answered, "The cabinet of St. James's has been disposed to set itself in opposition to my sending a squadron to Saint Domingo; I have notified it, that if it did not consent, I would send to Toussaint unlimited powers, and acknowledge him as independent. It has said no more to me on the point." If this is correct, England, it may be presumed, was influenced by fear for the effects of such a recognition on her neighboring slave colony of Jamaica. Thus does wrong support wrong. Having effected nothing in conversation, Vincent addressed to the Consul a written document, in which, after setting forth the means of defence which the colony possessed, he said, "At the head of so many resources is a man the most active and indefatigable

that can possibly be imagined. It may be strictly said that he is everywhere, and especially at the spot where sound judgment and danger would say that his presence is most essential; his great moderation, his power, peculiar to himself, of never needing rest; the advantage he has of being able to resume the labors of the cabinet after laborious journeys, of replying to a hundred letters every day, and of habitually fatiguing five secretaries; more still, the skill of amusing and deceiving everybody, carried even to deceit,--make him a man so superior to all around him that respect and submission go to the extent of fanaticism in a very great number of persons; it may be affirmed, that no man of the present day has acquired over an ignorant mass the boundless power obtained by General Toussaint over his brethren in Saint Domingo; he is the absolute master of the island; and nothing can counteract his wishes, whatever they are, although some distinguished men, of whom, however, the number among the blacks is very small, know and fear the extent to which his views proceed." Bonaparte was displeased at the frankness of these representations, and banished Vincent, their author, to the island of Elba, whither, at a later period, he was himself to be banished.

        Resolved to disembarrass himself of the veterans in union with whom he had gained his renown, but who now from their strong republican sympathies blocked up his way to the imperial throne, he called a council to deliberate on the most effectual means to be taken in order to bring Toussaint under his yoke. The members of the council were, of course, Bonaparte's creatures. Their desire to please the real sovereign of the land was stronger than their professed attachment to liberty. The councillors recommended the employment of force in order to reëstablish slavery; a large number proposed that, for the sake of terror, those whom they characterized as "the guilty" should be decimated. The Bishop of Blois, Gregory, that immortal friend of the cause of the blacks, had not given his opinion. "What do you think on the matter?" asked the council. "I think," he replied, "that the hearing of such

speeches suffices to show that they are uttered by whites; if these gentlemen were this moment to change color, they would talk differently." The restoration of slavery was resolved in the legislative body by a vote of two hundred and twelve against sixty-five. Such was the love of Frenchmen for liberty, for the rights of man, for the rights of their fellow-citizens, for the freedom of the black population of Hayti. The determination of itself justifies the course pursued by Toussaint L'Ouverture. His constitution may prove an ineffectual guarantee of the hardly-earned liberties of his color, but clearly it afforded the only feasible chance of perpetuating the good he had wrought out.

        On the 20th of May, 1801, Bonaparte published the infamous decree which placed the French colonies in the state in which they were before the year 1789, and which, authorizing the slave-trade, abrogated all laws to the contrary. This execrable measure marks the real character of the Corsican adventurer, and hands his name down to posterity covered with disgrace. Soon, however, did he find that in an evil hour he had overstepped the limits of prudence; and therefore he put forth another decree which hypocritically excepted Saint Domingo and Guadeloupe, "because these islands are free, not only by right, but in fact, whilst the other colonies are actually in slavery, and it would be dangerous to put an end to that state of things."

        The preparation of the public mind for the unjust and wicked attempt to put down liberty in Saint Domingo was aided by the less obvious but powerful efforts, not only of the colonists in general, but by the mulattoes who dwelt at Paris, of whom Rigaud may be considered as the head. Overcome and exiled by Toussaint, Rigaud panted for revenge. In that vindictive sentiment, he well represented his race, who could not forgive the black President for having extorted the freedom of his color out of their hands.

        There were in Paris two young men who looked on the arrangements for the expedition which they saw everywhere proceeding with anxiety and alarm. These were Isaac and Placide

L'Ouverture, sons of the liberator of Hayti, whom, as a testimony of his confidence, and a pledge of his fidelity, their father had sent to Paris for their education. They both resided in the College La Marche, of which Coasnon was the principal. The Consul judged it politic to throw a veil over their eyes. Intending to destroy the father, he had no scruples of conscience about deluding the sons. Coasnon, their teacher, being gained over, assured the young men that the French Government had none but pacific views. A few days afterward he received a letter from the Minister of Marine, apprising him that the Consul wished to see and converse with his pupils before their departure. Repairing to the minister's residence, they received in the presence of Coasnon a confirmation of his statement that the intentions of the Government were of a friendly nature. They were then conducted to Bonaparte, who, the better to conceal his real purposes, received them in a flattering manner. Having ascertained which of the two was Toussaint's own son, he said to him, "Your father is a great man; he has rendered eminent services to France. You will tell him that I, the first magistrate of the French people, promise him protection, glory, and honor. Do not think that France intends to carry war to Saint Domingo. The army which it sends thither is destined, not to attack the troops of the country, but to augment their numbers. Here is General Leclerc, my brother-in-law, whom I have appointed Captain-General, and who will command that armament. Orders have been given for you to arrive at Saint Domingo a fortnight before the fleet, to announce to your father the coming of the expedition." On the next day, the delusion was carried still farther, for the Minister of Marine, as a kind of practical assurance how well Toussaint and his children stood with the highest authorities, entertained the young men at a magnificent repast; and shortly after, in order to complete the farce by an appeal to negro vanity, he, in the name of his government, presented to them a superb suit of armor, and a rich and brilliant military costume.

        It scarcely needs be stated that the promise that the youths

should have time to assure their father of the pacific intentions of France was not observed. Having answered its momentary purpose it was openly and deliberately violated. The real design of all this collusion was that, misled by the reports of his sons in Paris, Toussaint L'Ouverture might be taken off his guard. Alas! that in the crisis of his fate he should have given credit to men who blushed not to deal in falsehood.

        It has already appeared, from the Consul's own words, that he had chosen Leclere, who was the husband of his sister Pauline, to be at the head of the expedition. Bonaparte was well pleased to have the opportunity of separating himself from Leclerc, whom he regarded as a relative little worthy of his present and his future greatness. The obscure birth of Leclerc, in the small town of Pontoise, disquieted his pride. Every day there came to Paris persons of low condition who gave themselves out as relatives of the Consul's sister. That sister possessed so rare a beauty that Canova reproduced her features in his statue of Venus Victrix,--Victorious Venus. To personal charms she added subtlety and grace of mind. Her looks awakened desires in the most indifferent hearts. She gathered around her all the artifices of voluptuousness. In her furniture she was luxurious; elegant in her personal decorations, and choice in the persons attached to her suite. She was attended by painters, musicians, and buffoons. Pauline accompanied her husband in the expedition. Leclerc was small in stature, but he had vivacity of mind and grace of manner. In countenance he was thought to bear some resemblance to the Consul. Though he had shown some courage and perseverance in the campaigns of the Alps and the Rhine, he was little else than the blind instrument of his brother-in-law, whom he imitated in war as well as in peace, with a closeness which betokened a contracted intellect. From such a man was expected the final settlement of the long quarrel of color in Saint Domingo.

        The preparations for the armament were made in different ports. No expense was spared. Holland, then under the domination of France and Spain, kept in alliance with it by

fear, furnished ships. The fleet, when collected, was composed of twenty-one frigates, and thirty-five vessels of war. It had on board all the best sailors of France, and was commanded by Villaret Joyeuse. In December, 1801, portions of it left the ports of Brest, Rochefort, and Lorient. The rest were to sail from other points. The ocean was covered with ships in order to punish a contumacious slave! The magnitude of the equipment is a measure of Toussaint's power. This fleet bore to Hayti one of the most valiant of armies. The Alps, Italy, the Rhine, and the Nile resounded with the exploits of the veterans who formed its strength. They now left lands which boasted of their civilization, to carry chains to a people who, uncultured though they were, had vindicated their freedom, and used that freedom wisely.

        As soon as the fleet had anchored off Cape Samana, at the eastern end of Saint Domingo, Leclerc numbered his sea and land forces, including others which he expected. They amounted to sixty ships and more than thirty thousand men, commanded by generals and captains of experience and renown. Among them were men of color who had become illustrious in the sanguinary struggle for emancipation. There was found Rigaud, whose valor had disputed the laurel with Toussaint himself. There was found Pétion, who, under a mild physiognomy, bore a lofty spirit. He was destined to found and govern a republic in the island he took part in invading. There was found Boyer, his illustrious successor, who, by a treaty with the king of France, was one day to secure the permanent independence of his native land. *

        * Boyer was a man of talent, but I cannot understand why he should be called illustrious. The treaty with France was characterized at the time, by many of the best men of Hayti, as an act of abject cowardice. Certainly, there was nothing illustrious in it: it may have been politic, but it was not herole; for it was signed under threats of bombardment.--ED.

in the West, four in the South, and three in what was formerly the Spanish territory. These troops, thus scattered, were, however, commanded by captains well trained to mountain warfare; all were animated by the love of freedom, which they cherished the more because they had acquired it at the cost of labor, peril, and bloodshed. Everywhere the Haytian army would find auxiliaries; soldiers, women, children, citizens, had all lived in the camps of the civil wars. Full of recollections of their former servitude, they were ready to perish sooner than submit.

        The gathering of the fleet at Samana took several weeks. The effect of a sudden descent was lost. On hearing that a fleet was approaching the island, Toussaint L'Ouverture threw the bridle over his horse's neck, and galloped to Cape Samana to reconnoitre the squadrons. Unversed in marine affairs, he at first took the manoeuvring for hesitation. But, as the vessels anchored in their several places, having never seen so large a fleet before, he was struck with astonishment, and feeling for a moment discouraged, he exclaimed to his officers, "We must perish. All France is coming to Saint Domingo. It has been deceived; it comes to take revenge and enslave the blacks."

        Convinced as he was of the hostile designs of the armament, Toussaint could not deny that its heralds had announced friendship. As little did he possess the right of making war against the forces of the country to which he professed allegiance. Had he already proclaimed the independence of Hayti, he would have been relieved from the perplexity of a dubious position. Even had he at this last moment proclaimed independence, he would have been saved from the evils of vacillation. But being neither at peace nor at war with his assailants, he labored under a great disadvantage. However, he made such arrangements as his unhappy position permitted. To act on the defensive was compulsory on him in the circumstances, and probably such a policy was every way the best. Should the armament prove really hostile, should it attack the island, then resistance must

be made; and if defeat ensued, there were the mountains for a retreat, and a succession of strongholds where an almost unlimited defence might be maintained.

        At length the fleet put itself in movement. After having detached Kerverseau to go and take possession of the city of Saint Domingo, Leclerc directed the armament in three divisions against three principal points; Fort Dauphin, and the city of the Cape in the North, and Port-au-Prince in the West. The island was thus invested. No declaration of war was made, no negotiations were opened. The squadrons sailed to the several points as if they approached a friendly shore, and as a matter of course entered friendly harbors. Nor could they be challenged. Toussaint possessed no vessels, and if he had vessels, was he not a French subject, and were these not French ships and French commanders?

        It was not possible for Isaac and Placide L'Ouverture any longer to doubt the nature of the errand on which the armament had been sent. They drew up, in writing, remonstrances which they presented to Leclerc, who, doubtless, smiled in his thoughts at their easy faith.

CHAPTER III.

        Leclerc obtains possession of the chief positions in the island, and yet is not master thereof--By arms and by treachery he establishes himself at the Cape, at Fort Dauphin, at Saint Domingo, and at Port-au-Prince--Toussaint L'Ouverture depends on his mountain strongholds.

        THE main squadron, under the immediate direction of Leclerc, proceeded to act against the Cape. Sent on an errand of duplicity, the commander meant war, yet was obliged to feign peace. His aim was, if possible, to obtain possession of the Cape, under the cover of friendship. Surely, admission into a French port could not be denied to French forces. In order to effect his purpose, he sent Lebrun, aide-de-camp of the admiral Villaret Joyeuse, on shore, to announce his intention of landing his troops. Lebrun was conducted to General Christophe, who held the place on behalf of the insular authorities. As Lebrun passed along, he, as if by accident, let fall a number of proclamations, intended to serve the cause of Bonaparte by stirring up the inhabitants. Having put his papers into the hands of Christophe, he received for answer, "Without the orders of the Governor-General, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who at present is in the Spanish part, I cannot receive the squadron and the troops which are on board." Lebrun whispered in the ear of Christophe, that General Leclerc was the bearer of splendid tokens of the favor of the Government toward him. "No, sir," was the prompt and decided reply, "I cannot listen to any proposition without the orders of the Governor. The proclamations you bring breathe despotism and tyranny. I shall go and administer to my soldiers an oath to maintain our liberty at the peril of their lives." The proclamation covertly published by Lebrun, was not wholly without effect. A deputation of citizens waited on Christophe to impress

on him the responsibility he took on himself in withstanding the orders of the mother country. He replied that he was a solider; that he acknowledged as his supreme chief only Toussaint L'Ouverture; that nothing proved to him that a squadron over which they saw foreign banners float had been sent by the mother country; that France would have taken other means to cause its commands to be acknowledged, and that it would have sent them by an envoy, and not by foreign squadrons. He ended by declaring, that if Leclerc, who called himself Captain-General, persisted in his resolution to enter the Cape, he would set the whole in flames rather than the ships should anchor in the harbor. However, he permitted a deputation of the city to go on board Leclerc's ship, and entreat a delay of two days, in order that Toussaint might be consulted. The General assured the deputies, that France, full of affection for the colony, had made every arrangement for its happiness; he set forth in a few words the great and benevolent projects which the mother country had for Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose sons it sent back after having educated them with the greatest care; he announced that he brought General Christophe proofs of the public gratitude, and remarked how monstrous would be the ingratitude of which those two chiefs seemed disposed to reader themselves guilty. He added, that the conduct of General Christophe having caused him to fear that he would employ the delay asked for in order, by drawing together his forces, to secure the success of the meditated resistance, he could not postpone the entrance of the squadron, and that he should make his arrangements in the space of half-an-hour,--time sufficient to enable General Chrisophe to repair the disgrace of his revolt by prompt submission. Christophe remained unmoved by the allurements and the threats of the French commander, though supported by the following letter :--

        "I learn with indignation, Citizen-General, that you refuse to receive the French squadron and army which I command, under

the pretext that you have not any order from the Governor-General.

        "France has made peace with England, and its Government sends to Saint Domingo forces able to subdue rebels, if rebels are to be found in Saint Domingo. As to you, Citizen-General, I avow that it would give me pain to reckon you among rebels. I warn you that if this very day you do not put into my possession the Forts Picolet, Belair and all the batteries of the coast, to-morrow at dawn fifteen thousand men shall be disembarked. Four thousand at this moment are landing at Fort Liberté, eight thousand at Port Republican; you will find my proclamation joined to this communication; it expresses the intentions of the French Government; but, remember, whatever esteem your conduct in the colony has inspired me with, I hold you responsible for whatever may take place.

        "The General-in-chief of the army of Saint Domingo, and Captain-General of the colony.

(Signed) "LECLERC."

        The letter, and the tone of the Captain-General served only to inflame the spirit of resistance, which had time to gather strength, because the squadron, not being able to procure pilots, was obliged to gain the open sea without being able to land the troops. Christophe mustered the soldiers of the line and made them swear to conquer or die, conformably to the proclamation of Toussaint L'Ouverture, dated the 18th of December, 1801. The proclamation of Leclere, intended to win over the civil authorities and the inhabitants, assumed a more pacific character, and promised to all the soldiers and functionaries of the colony, whatever their color, the confirmation of their rank and their offices. Smitten with fear, some of the civil authorities endeavored to prevail with Christophe, but he was not a man to be easily overcome.

        That chief, born in the island of Grenada, first an emancipated slave, then an innkeeper, a tradesman, and a cattle-dealer, ended by becoming a king. To the advantage of great height

he added that of a majestic carriage and an eye full of fire. He had a strong soul, adorned with civic, domestic, and military virtues. His prudence led him to trust little to fortune. He was active, patient, and temperate. Without having been instructed in the schools, he spoke with ease and grace; he took peculiar pleasure in diverting his guests by the recital of adventures or his valorous exploits. He was moreover liable to contrasts of temper which indicated the fiery impulses of his character. Some of his excellences he lost when seated on a throne. When the messenger of Leclerc urged him to surrender the city, he replied with hauteur, "Go and tell your General that the French shall march here only over ashes, and that the ground shall burn beneath their feet." He afterward wrote his determination in these terms,--"The decision of arms can admit you only into a city in ashes, and even on these ashes I will fight still!" Inexorable to the entreaties of treacherous natives, he was assailed by the following proclamation from Bonaparte, which they received from the hands of Leclerc, and put into circulation.

"THE FIRST CONSUL TO THE INHABITANTS OF SAINT DOMINGO.

        "Whatever your origin and your color, you are all Frenchmen; you are all free and equal before God and before men.

        "France, like Saint Domingo, has been a prey to factions, and has been torn by civil war and by foreign war; but all is changed; all nations have embraced the French, and have sworn peace and friendship toward them; all Frenchmen likewise have embraced each other, and have sworn to be friends and brothers; do you embrace the French, and rejoice at again beholding your brethren and your friends from Europe. The Government sends to you the Captain-General Leclerc; he brings with him large forces to protect you against your enemies and against the enemies of the Republic. If you are told, 'Those forces are destined to rob you of your liberty,' reply, 'The Republic will not allow that liberty shall be taken from us.'

        "Rally round the Captain-General; he brings you abundance and peace; rally round him. Whoever shall dare to separate himself from the Captain-General, will be an enemy to his country, and the wrath of the Republic will devour him as the fire devours your dried sugar-canes.

        "Given at Paris, at the Government Palace, the 17th Brumaire, in the tenth year of the French Republic (8 Nov., 1801).

        "The First Consul,

(Signed) "BONAPARTE."

        This proclamation was not of a nature to inspire confidence in men whom servitude had made habitually distrustful. The words of the Consul appeared those of a master who alternately employs promises and threats. The people of the Cape had no need of being assured of a liberty which they actually enjoyed; and that wrath presented under the image of the conflagration of their harvests looked, in their eyes, like a token of slavery. All declared that they would rather perish than return to servitude. While time was thus spent in useless words, the war had begun without any negotiation with Toussaint, whether an order to that effect had been given by the Consul, that he might strike terror into the inhabitants, or whether Leclerc considered that promptitude was the best means of commanding obedience. Rochambeau, who had been sent against Fort Dauphin, attacked the place by land and by sea. Everything soon yielded to French valor. The blacks fled, but in flying set the city on fire. At the sight of the flames, Rochambeau slaughtered all the prisoners, whom he treated as revolters. The bay of Mancenille was stained with the blood of many unarmed blacks, whose crime was that they had shouted, "No whites! no slavery!"

        Afraid lest Christophe should carry his threat into execution and set the city on fire, Leclerc resolved to take the enemy in the rear by landing his forces in the Bay of Acul. But the movement of the vessels and the noise of the cannon spread on all sides tumult and alarm. Burning plantations announced

that flames would soon rise from the town. Christophe, threatened by sea and by land by two bodies of foes, determined to set fire to the Cape. After distributing torches to his soldiers, and to all who were devoted to so sacred a cause, he called the Almighty Protector of liberty to witness that he was driven to extremity, and commenced the conflagration with his own residence, decorated in a costly manner by the arts of luxury. An ocean of flames rose in the air; roofs fell in all on fire; and in those flames the black man saw the preservation of his liberty. The appearance of the fleet, the blood of blacks and whites flowing on two parts of the coast, terror, confusion, the loss of so much wealth, awoke in all hearts the former furies of freedom and slavery. At the sight of the flames, which changed night into day, those passions painted themselves on white as well as black countenances. But no cries, no complaints were heard. Only fingers were pointed to the high lands above the Cape where freedom might find an asylum. The flight took place in silence, as if vengeance was deferred in order to be more terrible. An explosion of a powder magazine crowned that work of courage and despair. The flames of the conflagration were seen nearly at the same time by the French fleet and by Toussaint L'Ouverture, who arrived in the neighborhood from Santo Domingo, and who then regretted that he had not lost his life in the plains of the Artibonite when he fought for France and for his country; so great was his grief. He showed compassion to a multitude of old men, women, and children, who were scattered on all the roads, and who were flying through the mountains. How embarrassing his position: the Cape and Fort Dauphin had been treated as hostile cities.

        Christophe, who had set on fire his own house and the city, manifested a generosity too rare in war; fearing lest, in the confusion and the tumult of the conflagration, some two thousand whites with their wives and children might become victims of his men, be conducted them into a place of safety. After abandoning the Cape, Christophe joined Toussaint, and conjointly

they raised fire and flames everywhere. At the request of his chief, Christophe took up a position at La Grande Rivière, while Toussaint himself went toward the plain of the North. Both were thus immediately above the invading forces. The latter, in proceeding to his post, found himself face to face with the advanced guard of Leclerc, and passed through a most terrible fire. His cloak was riddled with balls, and his horse was wounded. Reaching Mornay, he received a letter from Rochambeau, who sought to set off his glory by affectations of pity. "I did not expect," he said, "that my soldiers in arriving here would have to dye their bayonets in the blood of their brothers and their friends." Toussaint L'Ouverture found it desirable to quit Mornay, and, passing through Ennery, where was his wife with a part of his family, made his way toward Gonaïves in the West. While Leclerc and Rochambeau were conquering in the North towns which were in ashes, their co-operator, General Boudet, in the West, was seeking by stratagem as much as by force to take possession of Port-au-Prince. That city, built of wood, was the rival of the Cape. Agé, who was intrusted with its defence, had not a soul proof against treachery. But alongside of him there served a captain worthy of "the good old times." Lamartinière possessed a heroic soul; his firmness, his courage, and his patience could not be surpassed. With a handful of soldiers, he was capable of resisting the efforts of an army. When the surrender of the city was demanded, the reply was the same as that which had been given at the Cape, only the threat of carnage was subjoined to the threat of conflagration. "If," replied the blacks,--"if the French disembark before we can be informed of the resolution of Toussaint, three cannon-shot, repeated from mountain-top to mountain-top, shall be the signal for the conflagration of our homes, and for the death of those who may endeavor to make us slaves."

        Not without disgust, nor without fear, did Boudet who had gained renown in the Antilles by wresting Guadeloupe from the hands of the English, land near Lamentin, distant about a

league to the west of Port-au-Prince. At the appointed signal, flames arose on all sides. Frightful disorder prevailed in the town. The blacks, dreading slavery, pursued the whites through the streets, and even searched for them in hiding-places. At the recollection of the evils of their past servitude, marks of which many of them still bore in their mutilated bodies, they saw in the whites only pitiless masters, and slew them unsparingly, or carried them away as hostages into the mountains. A large number of women, children, and old men sought in a church an asylum against the rage of their former slaves, who, in spite of the sanctity of the place, were on the point of sacrificing them as victims to their liberty; but a priest appeared, and called out for mercy; presenting the sacred utensils of the altar, and assuaging the wrath of the assailants, he saved the lives of the trembling and helpless crowd; but the raging men hastened away to find, in less hallowed places, whites on whom they might effectually wreak their terrible vengeance. Boudet, unused to the terrors that arose on every hand, exhorted his soldiers to mercy. "My comrades," he said, "you must regard these people as fellow-citizens; this is no foreign land, it is your country. Do not make use of your arms; uncover your breasts to them, in order that those who follow us may have the right to avenge us." By the treachery of its defenders, he obtained possession of Fort Bizoton, by which his progress might have been long stopped. Agé was thinking of surrendering the city itself; but Lamartinière, indignant at a second instance of perfidy, called into action, for its defence, all his resolution. At the council-board, he blew out the brains of a captain of artillery who refused the keys of the arsenal. So daring a stroke put an end to indecision and enkindled courage; he drew after him four thousand men to the gate of Leogane, where a redoubt, armed with six pieces of artillery, defended the town. Death was spread in the ranks of the French, who advanced slowly, uncertain of the use they should make of their arms. Soon their ardor burned up; they rushed across the moat, threw themselves into the city, and preserved it from the threatened conflagration.

        Lamartinière, less afflicted at his defeat than at not having reduced Port-au-Prince into ashes, hastened to intrench himself in Croix-des-Bouquets, a little to the north; a position surrounded by moats cut in a very hard soil. There he was waited for by Dessalines, who had come up too late to defend the city. That chief, who had the West under his command, was of a bold, turbulent, and ferocious spirit; now from revenge, now from ambition, he imbrued his hands in the blood of both white men and black men. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and loss of sleep he seemed made to endure as if by a peculiarity of constitution. His air was fierce, his step oblique, his look sanguinary. His face, furrowed with incisions, indicated the coast of Africa as his birthplace. Under that terrible aspect he concealed an impenetrable dissimulation. His barbarous eloquence lay in expressive signs rather than in words. What is strange in his destiny is, that he was a savage, a slave, a soldier, a general, and died, when an emperor, under the dagger of a Brutus. When he learnt that Port-au-Prince had escaped from conflagration, he turned pale, scolded, and roared with wrath.

        Boudet, intending to follow up his victory, flew to Croix-des-Bouquets, where he was awaited by those two formidable chiefs. But Dessalines understood his business too well to encounter the French general in set battle array. Knowing how by bold and rapid movements to deceive as well as escape from an enemy, he outflanked Boudet, and getting in his rear, set on fire Leogane, a charming city built on a promontory, before the invaders could arrive in the vicinity. The flames which destroyed that city rejoiced the soul of the barbarian, but did not console him for the escape of Port-au-Prince; he meditated fresh conflagrations.

        While the North and the West were theatres of fire and carnage, the East and the South submitted without the endurance of calamity. General Kerverseau, on presenting himself before Santo Domingo, found the inhabitants the more disposed to receive him, because in perilous missions in Santo Domingo, he had acquired a reputation for prudence and honor. Kerverseau

was not a great general, but a good man, modest and mild; respected by parties, he enjoyed much popularity. Paul L'Ouverture, who commanded the city, refused to yield without instructions from Toussaint, his brother. Negotiations, nevertheless, were opened, but they came to a stop when the news arrived that all was in flames in other parts. Then Kerverseau invested Santo Domingo by sea and land. Paul, meanwhile, had written for instructions to his distinguished brother. Toussaint sent a dispatch commanding him to destroy the city if he was unable to hold it against his adversary. But, fearing the message might fall into the hands of Kerverseau, he sent another, which recommended conciliation. These communications, intercepted by Spaniards who had taken sides with the French, fell into the hands of the besieging general. Kerverseau conveyed to Paul the message which bore a friendly character. Paul, importuned by the townsmen, admitted his assailant, and joined his ranks. Thus sell Santo Domingo, and with it there passed under the power of France a portion of Toussaint's forces.

        The Southern province, inhabited chiefly by mulattoes, and being the scene of Rigaud's revolt, was not likely to offer a stern resistance. Its commander, Laplume, no sooner heard that the French were masters of the Cape and Port-au-Prince, then he resolved to submit to the authority of the mother country. His troops, mostly of his own blood, cherished no friendly recollections toward Toussaint, by whom they had been subdued and were easily induced by their leader, who painted to them vividly the evils of civil war, and read the proclamation of the Consul, whose power, genius, and glory he extolled, to join him in taking place side by side with the assailants of the constitutional rights of the island. Thus, the strong points of Hayti were in the hands of Leclerc.

        At the Cape and at Fort Dauphin in the North, at Santo Domingo in the East, at Cayes in the South, and at Port-au-Prince in the West, the French invader had succeeded in taking up strong positions. In vain had Toussaint L'Ouverture

organized the best resistance in his power. The enemy were on the island. True, some of the places they held were only heaps of ruins. Nevertheless, they had effected a landing. The island, however, was not in their possession. Neither arms nor treachery had subdued the natives. Toussaint well knew that the seaports could not withstand so formidable an assault. But he knew also that a country which is full of mountains is inexpugnable. For the desultory warfare of the mountains he prepared himself, and, backed by the population at large, men of his own blood, he defied defeat, and felt confident that time and the climate would unstring the arm, and lay waste the spirits as well as the frames of his assailants. Even one advantage he had gained; for, whereas, at the first, the islanders knew not whether they had to expect peace or war, their leader, consequently, could fully prepare for neither: now, at length, the cloak was stripped off, and to all eyes it was clear that the only alternative was victory or servitude.

        On his part, Leclerc, though victorious, did not deceive himself with the notion of having accomplished his work. On the contrary, in view of the facts to which we have just adverted, he was aware that he had everything but the first step to accomplish. The Spartacus of Hayti was on his own mountains supported by a whole people able and ready to resist to the utmost. How was Leclerc to succeed? How could a desultory warfare in ravines and on precipices, in recesses and in mountain fastnesses, be either carried on or brought to a desirable issue against what was not in name but literally a levy en masse? A different method must be tried. So long as Toussaint L'Ouverture was at the head of those predatory bands, the consequences of victory would be only a little less beneficial than those of defeat. But treachery has power, and treachery of the basest kind was put into action.

CHAPTER IV.

        General Leclerc opens a negotiation with Toussaint L'Ouverture by means of his two sons, Isaac and Placide--the negotiation ends in nothing--the French Commander-in-chief outlaws Toussaint, and prepares for a campaign.

        BEFORE he was yet informed of the success of the expedition in the East, the South, and the West, Leclerc, well aware that in Toussaint L'Ouverture he had to do with an enemy not easy to overcome, resolved, when now he had himself taken up a firm position in the North, to put into play a method of operation from which he expected a decisive and immediate result. Vincent, who foresaw the terrible wasting that the European troops would have to endure under the tropics, advised the Consul to send back, partly as hostages, and partly as mediators, the sons of Toussaint,--and so take a means for bringing the colony into subjection, both more sure and less costly than the appeal to arms. This advice he urged specially on the ground that, as Toussaint had strong domestic feelings, he would not be able to stand out against the influence which the return of the young men, after a long absence, would exert on their father in favor of the Consul's designs. Accordingly, the Captain-General, having sent for the youths, who had remained on board the fleet, spoke to them of the calamities which had befallen the island, urged the necessity of a speedy accommodation, and reminded them of the letter written to their father by the First Consul. "I have," he added, "the greatest hope of coming to a good understanding with your father; he was absent; he could not command the resistance. You must carry to him the First Consul's letter; let him know my intentions, and the high opinion I entertain of him." It

was somewhat late to set on foot a friendly negotiation. But the hour was well-timed, since the delay had given Leclerc a footing in the island, if it had not also served, as intended, to show Toussaint L'Ouverture the inutility of opposition to the will of Bonaparte. The young men felt that their mission of peace should have preceded hostilities; but they felt, also, a very strong desire to see their parents and their home; nor were they wholly without a hope that even yet a pacific arrangement might be made. They therefore gladly accepted the embassy, and set out for Ennery, their father's dwelling-place, accompanied by their tutor, M. Coasnon. Behind them they left a horrible image of civil war,--old men, women, children, flying from fire and sword; everywhere alarm and consternation. Soon they came into view of peaceful scenes, the work of their father's genius,--cultivated fields, abundant crops, happy families. There was a land of desolation; here a land of prosperity. On their route they saw many inhabitants, but not one soldier. As soon as it was known who they were, crowds came out to greet them with acclamations; they were surrounded, welcomed, embraced, and questioned. Their object? It was to convey friendly assurances to their father. The news was gladly heard. Nevertheless, doubt soon resumed the ascendency. Those were, indeed, the sons of their venerated chief; they had been sent back unhurt; it was a token for good; yet, why announce peace by cannon-balls? Why land on a friendly shore with a charge of bayonets? Along the whole route, the same eagerness to see and welcome the youths was displayed. Delight for a moment took the place of terror. The family had been warned of the approach of the young men. At last, about nine o'clock in the evening of the second day after the departure from the Cape, their mother, accompanied by a few friends, came, with the aid of torch-light, to receive them in the midst of an immense crowd. It is more easy to conceive than describe the tender scenes which passed that evening in the home of Toussaint L'Ouverture. After the mother had for the moment indulged all her emotions in regard

to her sons, she turned to their preceptor, whose care and trouble she acknowledged in the fullest and warmest terms. All the family, for a short hour, forgetting the common miseries of their country, gave way to the sweetest and most joyous sentiments. Duty had prevented Toussaint himself from taking his place in this affecting interview. But, at eleven o'clock in the evening of the next day, the sound of a trumpet and the rattling of horses' feet announced his arrival. On his entrance, Isaac and Placide threw themselves passionately on his neck. Their father long held them pressed closely to his heart, while tears streamed down his hardy cheeks. M. Coasnon was sent for, to whom L'Ouverture expressed the high sense of his obligation for the attentions he had bestowed on the young men, thanking him for having accompanied them into the bosom of their family,--though he was sorry that their arrival took place in the midst of war, the cause of which, he said, was unknown to him, and which he had in no way expected. Then M. Coasnon presented to him the Consul's letter, to which was suspended by a silk cord the State seal,--the whole enclosed in a golden casket. The epistle was as follows:--

"TO CITIZEN TOUSSAINT, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMY OF SAINT DOMINGO.

"CITIZEN-GENERAL,--

        "The peace with England, and all the Powers of Europe, which has just placed the Republic on the summit of power and greatness, gives the Government the opportunity of occupying itself with the colony of Saint Domingo. We send thither Citizen-General Leclerc, our brother-in-law, as Captain-General, as First Magistrate of the colony. He is accompanied by forces sufficient to cause the sovereignty of the French people to be respected. In these circumstances, we have pleasure in hoping that you will prove to us and to all France the sincerity of the sentiments you have constantly expressed in the different letters that you have written to us.

        "We have conceived an esteem for you, and we take pleasure

in recognizing and proclaiming the services which you have rendered to the French people. If its banner floats over Saint Domingo, it is to you and the brave blacks that we owe it.

        "Called by your talents and the force of circumstances to the highest post, you have destroyed civil war, put reins on the persecution carried on by ferocious men, restored to honor religion and the worship of God,--from whom all things proceed.

        "The constitution you have formed, while containing many good things, contains some which are contrary to the dignity and the sovereignty of the French nation, of which Saint Domingo forms a portion.

        "The circumstances in which you found yourself, surrounded by enemies, while the mother country could not succor you nor send you provisions, rendered legitimate articles of that constitution which otherwise could not be legitimate; but now, when circumstances are so happily changed, you will be the first to pay homage to the sovereignty of the nation which counts you in the number of her most illustrious citizens, both for the services which you have rendered, and for the talents and force of character with which nature has endowed you. Conduct contrary to this would be irreconcilable with the idea which we have formed of you. It would cause you to forfeit the numerous rights you have to the gratitude of the Republic, and would dig before your feet a precipice, which, in causing your own ruin, might contribute to the ruin of those brave blacks whose courage we love, and whose rebellion we should be sorry to find ourselves compelled to punish.

        "We have made known to your children and their preceptor the sentiments which animate us, and we send them back to you.

        "Assist the Captain-General with your counsels, your influence, and your talents. What can you desire? The freedom of the blacks? You know that in all the countries where we have been, we have given freedom to the nations who did not possess it. Respect, honors, fortune? After the services which you have rendered, and which in this juncture you may render,

with the special sentiment we entertain toward you, how can you be uncertain as to the respect, the fortune, and the homage which await you?

        "Let the people of Saint Domingo know that the solicitude which France has always felt for their happiness has often been powerless through the imperious circumstances of war; that men come from the continent to agitate the island and support factions, were the products of the factions which distracted the mother country; that henceforth peace, and the strength of the Government, will secure the prosperity and the freedom of the colony. Tell them, that if to them liberty is the first of blessings, they cannot enjoy it except as French citizens, and that every act contrary to the interests of the mother country, to the obedience which they owe to the Government, and to the Captain-General, which is its delegate, would be a crime against the national sovereignty, which would eclipse their services, and render Saint Domingo the theatre of a destructive war in which parents and children would slay each other.

        "And you, General, reflect, that if you are the first of your color that has reached such a height of power, and that has gained distinction by bravery and military talents, you are, also, before God and us, the person who is responsible for the conduct of the inhabitants of the colony.

        "If there are evil-disposed persons who tell the individuals that have played the principal parts in the troubles of Saint Domingo that we have come to investigate what they have done during the times of anarchy, assure them that we shall inquire only as to their conduct in this last circumstance; that we shall search into the past only to discover the deeds which have made them distinguished in the war against the Spaniards and the English, who were our enemies.

        "Reckon unreservedly on our esteem, and conduct yourself as be ought who is one of the principal citizens of the greatest nation in the world.

"The First Consul,
(Signed) "BONAPARTE."

        Toussaint L'Ouverture, after running his eyes rapidly over this compound of cajolery and menace, was about to reply, when his sons and M. Coasnon spoke to him of the handsome reception they had had from the Consul, and the magnificent promises he had made them; they also did justice in setting forth the assurance given them by Bonaparte, that the army commanded by Leclerc was not sent to Saint Domingo with hostile views; adding, that it was the desire of that general to enter into an accommodation with Toussaint L'Ouverture. Then the liberator of Hayti said in reply, "You, M. Coasnon, you, whom I consider as the preceptor of my sons, and the envoy of France, must confess that the words and the letter of the First Consul are altogether in opposition to the conduct of General Leclerc; those announce peace,--he makes war on me.

        "General Leclerc, in falling on Saint Domingo as a clap of thunder, has announced his mission to me only by the burning of the capital, which he might have avoided; by the capture of Fort Dauphin, and the landing on the coast of Limbé effected by main force.

        "I have just been informed that General Maurepas has been attacked by a French division, which he has repulsed; that the commander of Saint Marc has forced two French vessels which cannonaded that city to put to sea. In the midst of so many disasters and acts of violence, I must not forget that I wear a sword. But, for what reason is so unjust, so impolitic, a war declared against me? Is it because I have delivered my country from the plague of foreign and civil conflict; that with all my power I have labored for her prosperity and her splendor; that I have established order and justice here? Since these actions are regarded as a crime, why are my children sent to me, in such a juncture, to share that crime?

        "As for the rest, if, as you tell me, General Leclerc frankly desires peace, let him stop the march of his troops. He will preserve Saint Domingo from total subversion, and will tranquillize minds exasperated by his system of aggression and invasion.

I will, M. Coasnon, write him a letter having this tenor, which you, my two children, and M. Granville, the tutor of my younger son, shall put into his hands."

        The conversation was prolonged far into the night. Toussaint remarked on the inconsistency of recognizing him as Commander-in-chief of Saint Domingo, at the very time that he was assailed by an overpowering force. He could not suppress the indignation which he felt at the thought that his children were offered to him as the price of his surrender. He bade M. Coasnon take them back to General Leclerc, because, at every hazard, he owed the sacrifice of his life to the freedom of his fellow-citizens. The father struggled with the liberator, and brought a flood of tears from his eyes. The liberator overpowered even the father, and exacted the sternest regard to public duty.

        In two days the letter was ready. On the night of February 11th, 1802, the appointed messengers were despatched with the communication. As they travelled toward the Cape, M. Granville acquainted M. Coasnon with the irritation that prevailed among the blacks. The life of the unfortunate whites hung by a thread, and, at any moment, a word would be sufficient to sunder the slender tie. In his reply, Toussaint reproached Leclerc with having come to displace him by means of cannon shot; with not having delivered to him the letter of the First Consul, until three months after its date; and with having, by hostile acts, rendered doubtful the rights and the services of his color. He declared that those rights imposed upon him duties that were superior to those of nature; that he was prepared to sacrifice his children to his color, and that he sent them back that it might not be supposed they were bound by his presence. He ended by saying, that, being more distrustful than ever, he required time in order to decide the course which remained for him to take.

        Leclerc hastened to send back the young men with a reply, in which he invited Toussaint to come and concert with him means for putting a stop to the public disorders; giving him his

word that the past should be sunk in oblivion; that he, Toussaint, should be treated with the greatest distinction; and that, if he compiled with the request, he should that moment be proclaimed the first lieutenant of the Captain-General of the colony. Leclerc finished his epistle by stating that, though he had precise instructions not to discontinue warlike operations if he found it necessary to commence them, yet, in the hope of a good understanding, he would condescend to an armistice of four days, but, that delay over, he would, by a proclamation, declare Toussaint an enemy of the French nation, and put him beyond the pale of the law.

        The allurement was too weak; the threat was impotent. Duty with Toussaint was superior to every other consideration. He could be neither bought nor intimidated. Irritated by this ultimatum he resolved to employ all his energies for the maintenance of the liberties he had achieved. Yet had he no wish to involve his sons in the issue. He, therefore, after announcing to them his final resolution, declared that he left them free to choose between France and their father; that he did not blame their attachment to the mother country; but that his color stood between him and France; that he could not compromise the destinies of his color by placing himself at the mercy of an expedition, in which figured several white generals, as well as Rigaud, Pétion, Boyer, Chanlatte, and others, all his personal enemies; that the order not to cease from fighting to negotiate, showed that France had more confidence in its arms than in its rights; that a confidence of such a nature indicated the despotism of mere force; and that if no practical regard was paid to the rights of the blacks while they had some power, what would their condition be when he and his should be powerless?

        His sons threw themselves into his arms, imploring him to yield. Their tears and their caresses failed to move him. Remaining inflexible, he merely repeated, "My children, make your choice; whatever it is, I shall always love you." At length his own son Isaac, detaching himself from his father's

arms, exclaimed, "Well, behold in me a faithful servant of France, who can never resolve to bear arms against her." Placide, Isaac's uterine brother, manifested indecision. Toussaint, petrified, gave his paternal benediction to Isaac, whom he gently put away from him. Meanwhile Placide, overpowered, threw himself on his father's neck, and sobbing, said, "I am yours, father; I fear the future; I fear slavery; I am ready to fight against it; I renounce France." Immediately L'Ouverture invested him with the command of a battalion of his guard, whom, a few days after, he led against the invaders. With all Toussaint's affection for his own son, Isaac, he was unable to bring himself to offer the least opposition to his joining the French. A mother's tenderness, however, knows no claims but those of natural affection, and, impelled by that powerful sentiment, Toussaint's wife succeeded in causing Isaac to change his determination. The young man wrote that he was prevented from returning to the Cape by his mother's urgent entreaties.

        This scene, which was reported to Leclerc, sufficed to prove to him the failure of the device by which the parents were to be enslaved through their attachment to their children. Most unworthy purpose! What a terrible thing is war! How blind is ambition! A thirst for self-aggrandizement, when supported by power and sustained by position, confounds right and wrong, desecrates the holy, disowns moral obligation, and spreads wasting and woe through families, cities, and nations.

        Further attempts at accommodation were made. Toussaint offered to prevent resistance, if Leclerc would communicate to him the instructions he had received from the First Consul, and stop the advance of the French troops. Toussaint added, that should Leclerc continue to press forward, he would repel him by force of arms. A deputation of the natives waited on the French commander. To their solicitations, Leclerc insolently replied, that he was the brother-in-law of the First Consul, that he had the bayonets on his side, and that he would take Toussaint before he had his boots off. Full of himself,

and fancying that he was about to become the Bonaparte of America, he issued to the inhabitants of Saint Domingo the following proclamation:--

HEADQUARTERS OF THE CAPE, le 28 Pluviose, an 10.
(17th February, 1802.)

"INHABITANTS OF SAINT DOMINGO,

        "I have come hither, in the name of the French Government, to bring you peace and happiness; I feared I should encounter obstacles in the ambitious views of the chiefs of the colony; I was not in error.

        "Those chiefs who announced their devotion to France in their proclamations, had no intention of being Frenchmen; if they sometimes spoke of France, the reason is that they did not think themselves able to disown it openly. At present, their perfidious intentions are unmasked. General Toussaint sent me back his sons with a letter in which he assured me that he desired nothing so much as the happiness of the colony, and that he was ready to obey all the orders that I should give him.

        "I ordered him to come to me; I gave him an assurance that I would employ him as my lieutenant-general: he replied to that order by mere words; he only seeks to gain time.

        "I have been commanded by the French Government to establish here prosperity and abundance promptly; if I allow myself to be amused by cunning and perfidious ciruumlocutions, the colony will be the theatre of a long civil war.

        "I commence my campaign, and I will teach that rebel what is the force of the French Government.

        "From this moment, he must be regarded by all good Frenchmen residing in Saint Domingo only as an insensate monster.

        "I have promised liberty to the inhabitants of Saint Domingo; I will see that they enjoy it. I will cause persons and property to be respected.

        "I ordain what follows:--

        "Article 1.--General Toussaint and General Christophe are outlawed; every good citizen is commanded to seize

them, and to treat them as rebels to the French Republic.

        "Article 2.--From the day when the French army shall have taken up quarters, every officer, whether civil or military, who shall obey other orders than those of the Generals of the army of the French Republic, which I command, shall be treated as a rebel.

        "Article 3.--The agricultural laborers who have been led into error, and who, deceived by the perfidious insinuations of the rebel Generals, may have taken up arms, shall be treated as wandering children, and shall be sent back to tillage, provided they have not endeavored to incite insurrection.

        "Article 4.--The soldiers of the demi-brigades who shall abandon the army of Toussaint, shall form part of the French army.

        "Article 5.--General Augustin Clervaux, who commands the Department of the Ciboa, having acknowledged the French government, and the authority of the Captain-general, is maintained in his rank and in his command.

        "Article 6.--The General-in-chief of the Staff will cause this proclamation to be printed and published.

        "The Captain-General commanding the army of Saint Domingo.

(Signed) "LECLERC."

        This is plain language. Leclerc could speak so as to be understood, when it suited his purpose.

        Toussaint L'Ouverture, on his part, was not dismayed by the threatening storm. The greater the danger the loftier was his spirit; he reviewed his guard, and acquainted them with General Leclerc's imperious determination. "General," they shouted with one voice, "we will all die with you."

CHAPTER V.

        General Leclerc advances against Toussaint with 25,000 men in three divisions, intending to overwhelm him near Gonaïves--The plan is disconcerted by a check given by Toussaint to General Rochambeau in the Ravine Couleuvre.

        THE Captain-General of the French army, having mustered all his disposable forces in the North, and received a reinforcement of seven thousand men, commenced operations in three divisions, amounting in all to five-and-twenty thousand men. One division, commanded by General Rochambeau, set out from Fort Dauphin to march to Saint Michel; the second, led by Desfourneaux, advanced from Limbé to occupy Plaisance; and the third, under General Hardy, marching to the centre, went to take possession of Marmelade. These three divisions were, together with Boudet, who was to proceed from Port-au-Prince, to effect a junction at Gonaïves in order to surprise Toussaint in his headquarters there, and put a speedy termination to the war. In proportion as the French army forced its way into the interior of the country, which was broken by mountains, gorges, and defiles, the conflict became more and more difficult. The soldiers were vexed and harassed at having to do with a flying enemy, who, constantly fighting in ambush, inflicted wounds or death as if from an invisible cause, with perfect impunity to themselves, whether from the speed with which they fled into well-known retreats, or from the height of the mountains, on which the sun burnt with a heat intolerable to Europeans. In these marches, which were rather difficult than long, the soldiers suffered from hunger, thirst, and extreme lassitude; and after the perils and penalties of the ocean, they found on the land, instead of repose or glory, a warfare in which victory brought no honor,

and defeat entailed deep disgrace; and in which victory was purchased by intolerable endurance, and defeat was made afflicting by contempt for the foe, and disastrous by the revenge which that foe could on his own soil so easily take. In quitting Fort Dauphin, Rochambeau traversed the country called Ouanaminthe, passed round the north of La Grande Rivière, climbed the black mountain of Gonaïves, and descended toward the savannas of La Desolée.

        The division commanded by Desfourneaux took possession of the district of Plaisance, which was treacherously delivered to him by its commander without striking a blow.

        The division under Hardy scaled and captured the formidable position at Boispin, and carried at the point of the bayonet Marmelade, which was defended by Christophe.

        The theatre of the war lay accordingly on the chain of the mountains which separate the North from the West, and which overtop the heights of Dondon, Villière, and the black mountain of Gonaïves. In those places Toussaint had concentrated his inferior army in order to prevent the French, who had landed on three points of the coast, from concerting their operations, and from surrounding his own troops, overwhelming him at once with all their sea and land forces.

        The situation of Toussaint had become perilous, environed as he was on all sides by advancing foes. The peril, however, was neither unexpected nor unprovided for. Rochambeau was near Lacroix, lying in the mountains in a line between Esther and Gonaïves. In order to descend into the plains, he must pass through the ravine Couleuvre. This ravine was a narrow gorge flanked by precipitous mountains, covered with wood, and which swarmed with armed black laborers.

        Rochambeau, by a movement in this direction, seemed likely to effect great results. He might render himself master of the person of Madame Toussaint, of her sister and her two nieces, who had just arrived at Lacroix. He might also cut off Toussaint's connection with Dessalines and Belair, and so bring the contest to an end by one blow. It was then necessary for

Toussaint to prevent the advance of Rochambeau, unless he was willing to be the next morning attacked by all Leclerc's army, in a semicircle, of which the coast, off which lay vessels of war, would have been the diameter. Leaving General Vernet, therefore, in command of his troops at Gonaïves, he put himself at the head of a squadron and of the grenadier battalion of his guard, and marched to his habitation at Lacroix. Not finding his wife and family on his arrival, he inquired where they were, and at what distance Rochambeau might be. He could learn nothing more exact than that, at the news of the enemy's approach, the ladies had sought shelter in the forest. Toussaint, having surveyed the district, made his arrangements for attack. To stop or retard the foe, he closed the defile with trees that were felled and thrown across the narrow path. In the flanks of the two mountains he placed ambuscades that were to fall on the French on their sides and in their rear, at the same time that he would assail them in front, thus surrounding them every way. For fear of being discovered, he lighted no fire during the night. Accompanied by one of his aide-de-camps and two laborers, he went forward to reconnoitre. One of his guides, having pushed on venturously, fell into the midst of an outpost belonging to Rochambeau. Captured, he was put to death without being able even by a cry to warn Toussaint of the proximity of his foes. Having learned all he could, that general rejoined his band, gave orders for battle, and addressed to the soldiers the following speech:--

        "You are going to fight against enemies who have neither faith, law, nor religion. They promise you liberty, they intend your servitude. Why have so many ships traversed the ocean, if not to throw you again into chains? They disdain to recognize in you submissive children, and if you are not their slaves, you are rebels. The mother country, misled by the Consul, is no longer anything for you but a step-mother. Was there ever a defence more just than yours? Uncover your breasts, you will see them branded by the iron of slavery. During ten

years, what did you not undertake for liberty? Your masters slain or put to flight; the English humiliated by defeat; discord extinguished; a land of slavery purified by fire, and reviving more beautiful than ever under liberty; these are your labors, and these the fruits of your labors; and the foe wishes to snatch both out of your hands. Already have you left traces of your despair; but for a traitor, Port-au-Prince would be only a heap of ruins; but Léogane, Fort-Dauphin, the Cape, that opulent capital of the Antilles, exist no longer; you have carried everywhere consuming fires, the flambeaux of our liberty. The steps of our enemies have trodden only on ashes; their eyes have encountered nothing but smoking ruins, which you have watered with their blood. This is the road by which they have come to us. What do they hope for? Have we not all the presages of victory? Not for their country, not for liberty do they fight, but to serve the hatred and the ambition of the Consul, my enemy,--mine because he is yours; their bodies are not mutilated by the punishments of servitude; their wives and their children are not near their camps, and the graves of their fathers are beyond the ocean. This sky, these mountains, these lands, all are strange to them? What do I say? As soon as they breathe the same air as we, their bravery sinks, their courage departs. Fortune seems to have delivered them as victims into our hands. Those whom the sword spares will be struck dead by an avenging climate. Their bones will be scattered among these mountains and rocks, and tossed about by the waves of our sea. Never more will they behold their native land; never more will they receive the tender embraces of their wives, their sisters, and their mothers; and liberty will reign over their tomb."

        On his side, Rochambeau, too much accustomed to treat the Africans with pride and contempt, nevertheless, thought it prudent to encourage his men by telling them that this day would raise their glory to the highest pitch, since there would be no part of the world which would not be a witness of their triumph; that the Tiber, the Nile, and the Rhine, where they had

conquered very formidable adversaries, resounded with the echoes of their exploits; that now they had to combat slaves, who, not daring to look them in the face, were flying on all hands; and that they had not come thousands of miles from home to be overcome by a rebellious slave.

        As soon as the day broke, Toussaint's advanced guard, in passing a river, encountered the advanced guard of Rochambeau, which was on its march. Then the action began. The impetuosity of the attack was checked by the bravery of the resistance. The troops in ambush pressed forward on the flanks and in the rear of the French, who everywhere presented a bold front to the assailants. The retrenchment having been opened, the conflict became bloody and obstinate. Now the victory inclined to this side, now to that. The uncertainty did but inflame the courage of both. Toussaint was then seen to brave a thousand perils. Some of his grenadiers yielding a little before the French impetuosity, a young officer called back their powers by these words, "What! you desert your general!" That moment he put himself at the head of a platoon of grenadiers, and, ascending an eminence which commanded Rochambeau's right wing, annoyed him with a destructive fire. At this moment an officer of dragoons having informed Toussaint that his wife and family were behind a mountain not far from the place of action, he replied, "Do you see that they take the road to Esther; I must here perform my duty." His duty he did perform. Regardless of himself, he encouraged his men when they vacillated, and ever again led them into the fight. With such fury did the conflict rage that arms were thrown aside, and combatants, seizing each other, struggled for ilfe and death. The field of battle was covered with the slain. A decisive effort was necessary. Putting himself at the head of his grenadiers, Toussaint rushed to the attack, and drove Rochambeau over the river, where, in the morning, the fight had begun. He then returned, and took up a position on his side of the stream.

        The issue remained undecided; but Toussaint had rescued his

family and stopped the impetuous career of Rochambeau. He had also gained time, while Christophe, by a vigorous defence, retarded the advance of Desfourneaux and of Hardy. Thus had he saved himself from being surrounded on the plain of Gonaïves. Like a man of genius, he had chosen the place and the time of the combat, and in a crisis obtained great advantages.

        Retiring toward his centre, Toussaint pitched his camp on the banks of Esther. There, surrounded by his soldiers and his family, and covered with a cloak, he had only a plank on which to sit and to sleep. He passed the greater part of the night in despatching orders written with his own hand, and in going from post to post. The next day he sent his wife and family to the mountain known by the name of Grand Cahos, which runs in a line with the Artibonite. His visit to Esther, however, was only for a temporary purpose. He was too good a soldier to meet the concentrated forces of the enemy in a level country, where, with all his valor, he would not have been able to prevent his comparatively diminutive army from being crushed. His ability to offer any effectual resistance had arisen from the judgment he had employed in making the mountains the seat of the warfare. Justified in this policy by the success which he had gained, he determined to evacuate Esther, and to collect troops in another mountainous stronghold, still more favorable than that in which he had defeated Rochambeau.

        A review of the operations of Toussaint L'Ouverture, from the point at which our narrative has arrived, shows that the method of his warfare consisted in passive or active resistance, which, after spreading fire and devastation before the enemy's march, withdrew from the coast and made the mountains its centre and its bulwark. That this plan was carefully weighed and well laid out, may be presumed from a knowledge of Toussaint's character. It was also carried into effect as thoroughly as circumstances permitted. If, in any respect, it failed, the failure was owing to no remissness on the part of the great

chief. The following letters, written by him at the beginning of the campaign, may serve to illustrate and confirm these observations, and may conduce to the reader's acquaintance with the character of our hero.

"LIBERTY.        "EQUALITY.

"The Governor-General to General Dessalines, Commander-in-chief of the army of the West.

HEADQUARTERS GONAÏVES, Feb. 8, 1802.

        "There is no reason for despair, Citizen-General, if you can succeed in removing from the troops that have landed the resources offered to them by Port Republican. Endeavor, by all the means of force and address, to set that place on fire; it is constructed entirely of wood; you have only to send into it some faithful emissaries. Are there none under your orders devoted enough for this service? Ah! my dear General, what a misfortune that there was a traitor in that city, and that your orders and mine were not put into execution.

        "Watch the moment when the garrison shall be weak in consequence of expeditions into the plains, and then try to surprise and carry that city, falling on it in the rear.

        "Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy season which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and flames. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest aliment. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the fountains; burn and annihilate everything, in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of that hell which they deserve.

"Salutation and Friendship,

(Signed) "TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

"Toussaint L'Ouverture, Governor of Saint Domingo, to Citizen Domage, Brigadier-General, commanding the district of Jérémie.

HEADQUARTERS, SAINT MARC, the 9th of Feb., 1802.

        "I send to you, my dear General, my aide-de-camp, Chancy.

He conveys to you the present communication, and will tell you from me what I have charged him to make known to you.

        "The whites of France and of the Colony, united together, wish to take away our liberty. Many vessels and troops have arrived, which have seized the Cape, Port Republican, and Fort Liberté.

        "The Cape, after a vigorous resistance, has fallen; but the enemy found only a city and country of ashes; the forts were blown up, and everything has been burnt.

        "The town of Port Republican was surrendered to them by the traitor Agé, as well as Fort Bizoton, which yielded without striking a blow, through the cowardice and the treachery of Bardet. The General of Division, Dessalines, at this moment maintains a cordon at Croix des Bouquets; and all our other places are on the defensive.

        "As Jérémie is very strong through its natural advantages, you will maintain yourself in it, and defend it with the courage which I know you possess. Raise the laborers in a mass, and infuse into them this truth, namely, that they must distrust those who have received proclamations from the whites of France, and who secretly circulate them in order to seduce the friends of liberty.

        "I have ordered Laplume, Brigadier-General, to set on fire the City of Cayes, the other towns, and all the plains, in case he is unable to withstand the enemy's force, and then all the troops of the different garrisons, and all the laborers should go to Jérémie to augment your band. You will take measures with General Laplume, for the due execution of these things. You will employ the women engaged in agriculture in making depôts of provisions in great abundance.

        "Endeavor as much as you can to send me news of your position. I reckon entirely on you, and leave you absolutely master, to do everything in order to save us from the most frightful yoke.

"Wishing you health,
"Salutation and Friendship,

(Signed) "TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.

CHAPTER VI.

        Toussaint L'Ouverture prepares Crête-à-Pierrot as a point of resistance against Leclerc, who, mustering his forces, besieges the redoubt, which, after the bravest defence, is evacuated by the blacks.

        THE district into which Toussaint L'Ouverture had sent his family was that to which he meant to transfer his resistance. The mountain range which he resolved to occupy and entrench bears the name of Artibonite, and is divided into two districts, the one called the Grand Cahos, the other the Petit Cahos. These mountains, over which he spread his army, are intersected with deep ravines and precipitous outlets, at every one of which a handful of brave men could arrest an army. The principal entrance was defended by Crête-à-Pierrot, a redoubt which blocked up the pass, and which the English had constructed when they invaded the West.

        In passing toward the new seat of war, where he was joined by his chief generals, Toussaint was suddenly attacked with a burning fever. His mind, however, so far mastered his body that he scarcely abated his activity, and formed designs of the greatest daring, in making arrangements for attacking the enemy in the rear. Ill as he was, he set out to survey the district, and arrived in time to prevent the demolition of Crête-à-Pierrot, which had been abandoned, and which Dessalines had ordered to be razed. He then proceeded to add to its strength. He supplied it with water and food as precautions against a siege. He placed in it a garrison, and gave the command to Dessalines. Having called the officers together, he harangued them thus: "Children,--yes, you are all my children, from Lamartinière, who is white as a white, but who knows that he has negro blood in his veins, to Monpoint, whose skin is the same as mine,--I intrust to you this post. Take measures

for its defence." The officers declared that he might rely on them, living or dead.

        To more destructive hands than those of Dessalines, this important post could not have been confided. In his retreat, that ferocious monster had dragged away from their homes all the whites he could seize, whom the sword and the musket had spared. These were conducted to Verettes, Mirebalais, and Petite Rivière, towns lying along the banks of the Artibonite. There were renewed the frightful scenes of the first insurrection. At the sight of the conflagration which reduced into ashes the villages and the fields at the foot of Mount Cahos, where Toussaint had entrenched himself, a vast carnage was made of the whites. Four hundred men were massacred at Mirebalais and Petite Rivière. In no place was the slaughter so terrible as at the village of Verettes. At the nod of Dessalines, men who had been slaves, and who dreaded the new servitude with which they were threatened, slew seven hundred of the poor wretches that Dessalines had dragged after him. The daughter breathed her last on the bosom of her expiring mother. The father was unable to save the son; the son was unable to save the father. There a sister died in the arms of a brother; here, a nurse tried to make her body a means of defence for her infant; her milk and her blood flowed in one stream. Farther on, old men in vain implored pity from their former slaves, whom they called on by name to bring back the remembrance of past acts of kindness. Whole families were thus bathed in blood. More frightful and more atrocious still was the sight when sons slew their fathers, thus revenging themselves for the black blood of their mothers, and the neglect and disavowal of their fathers. So great was the fury of the blacks and mulattoes that they even wreaked their rage on domestic animals which belonged to the planters. Thus the banks of the Artibonite were covered with fire and blood. Before the arrival of the French expedition, all there was peaceful, prosperous, and happy.

        The French felt deep compassion when, on coming up, they beheld at Verettes so many victims who still remained unburied,

and who retained the attitudes in which they perished, as if to paint an awful picture of the evils of slavery. They there saw the arm of one victim locked in that of another; hand grasped in hand; faces fixed on the same object; father, mother, children grouped together,--a family even in death; young women who in the last moments forgot not they were women; bodies which had served as useless ramparts to friendship and to filial and paternal love. The scenes were horrible. Nor was their horror abated by the fact that ravages scarcely less atrocious had been committed by the white invaders. A little before, the bay of Mancenille had smoked with innocent blood. And on more than one occasion had prisoners been slain in bands, in order to strike alarm into the defenders of their native soil. All the blacks, however, were not barbarians. Many, moved by pity or gratitude, saved the lives of unfortunate colonists. Some concealed them in the mountains, and supported them by what they took in hunting. Others led them, through by-paths, into districts occupied by the French. There were blacks who, to prevent suspicion on the part of pursuers, covered their white friends with leaves and branches, and counterfeited drunkenness when they thought there was special danger of discovery. Calamities, public and private, so numerous and so terrible, were more than human strength could endure, and under their pressure, some persons lost their reason and others committed suicide. What a complication of sorrows,--all caused by slavery.

        Having provided for the defence of the country of the Artibonite, and directed Belair to occupy the mountains of Verettes, Toussaint proceeded to execute his daring plan of taking Leclerc in the rear in order to operate a diversion in favor of the Artibonite lines, and to reanimate the courage of the North. With a small but resolute force, Toussaint ascended the defiles, and the chain of mountains which separate the Artibonite from the district of Saint Michael. In vain was General Hardy detached in pursuit of him by Leclerc, whose army was in movement to attack Crête-à-Pierrot. Toussaint appeared at Ennery, and the French garrison which Leclerc had left there

fled at his approach to Gonaïves. He presented himself before Gonaïves, and might have captured it, had he chosen. He was satisfied with alarming the garrison, which was on the point of embarking on board a frigate that was in the roads. Having attained his end, he returned to Ennery, where he organized battalions of militia, who were employed to guard and defend the country. This work finished, he betook himself to Marmelade. There he sent an order to Christophe, who was at Petite-Rivière, to return promptly into the North, where, in the forest of Grande Rivière, there had, without the French being aware of it, been formed a considerable depôt of arms and ammunition. From Marmelade, Toussaint went to Plaisance. On his arrival, he proceeded to reconnoitre a fort situated on a height. A few hours after, he placed himself at the head of two companies of grenadiers and captured it. The following day, he divided his troops into two bodies. Taking the command of the right wing, he marched to meet Desfourneaux, who was coming up to attack him. He bore up against the impetuosity of the French troops, who were much more numerous than his own, and at length succeeded in putting them to flight. Sending, in the moment of action, an aide-de-camp to learn how things went on in the left wing, he was led to believe that Desfourneaux was manoeuvring so as to circumvent him. Thereupon he left the right to the care of Colonel Gabarre, and with a few men hurried to the point of danger. Among the European troops he recognized the uniform of the Ninth Saint Domingo regiment. Advancing quite alone to within five or six paces of the regiment, which easily recognized their proper commander, he said, "Soldiers of the ninth, will you dare fire on your general and on your brethren?" The words fell like a thunder-clap on the soldiers; who forthwith were on their knees, and, but for the European troops, who began to fire, they would have joined Toussaint. Seeing the peril of their general, Toussaint's forces defended him against the Europeans. He escaped through the thick of a fire which was very destructive. A young officer, bearing a letter from Dessalines to the Governor of the island,

received a mortal blow at the moment that he delivered it, and expired in Toussaint's arms. From that letter the General-in-chief learned that his aid was urgently required at Crête-à-Pierrot; thither, therefore, he repaired.

        The French had been drawing their strength under the foot of the mountains of Cahos. As they made their way, they beheld the ravages committed by the enemy. Traces of fire and death appeared everywhere. Here and there they met a great number of colonists wandering in the woods and hanging on the sides of the rocks, with their wives and children, having escaped from death only by chance or flight. The soldiers restored to them hope, and promised them revenge. The sight of these unhappy people, whose clothes were in rags, their cries, their moanings, the horror with which they were stricken, inflamed the minds of their rescuers, and prepared them for any atrocities. Without scruple and without pity, they massacred the herds of blacks whom the fate of war had thrown into their hands; two hundred they immolated at the Fort of Mount Nolo; a little further on, six hundred fell beneath their murderous hands. Thus carnage was added to carnage, and black blood flowed to avenge white blood. The savage and torn sides of Mount Cahos, the odorous banks of the Artibonite, offered the spectacle of barbarity opposed to barbarity, and war was only prolonged assassination. These are the horrible devastations of slavery.

        No graves were dug, no mounds were raised for sepulture. Dessalines had prohibited interment in order that the eyes of his assailants might see his vengeance even in the repulsive remains of carnage. It is said that the monster slew a mother for having buried her son. The French, carried away by the movements of the war, gave no attention to the religious duty of burial, so that the dead bodies became food for dogs, vultures, and crocodiles; and their bones, partly calcined by the sun, remained scattered about, as if to mark the mournful fury of servitude and lust of power.

        Fortune seemed to smile on Leclerc. He lost no time in

announcing to his brother-in-law his success, which he failed not to exaggerate,--entire battalions that had joined his ranks, the two provinces of the South and the East subdued, all the mari-time cities in his power,--such were the heads of his triumphant report. He described Toussaint L'Ouverture as a party-chief, sullen, violent, fanatical, hateful, breathing only fire and slaughter; he called him a barbarian, an unnatural father, sacrificing his children to his passion for revolt, a mere fugitive slave, devoured by remorse, abandoned, and pursued. This news, which gave the Consul joy, delighted the colonists who had remained in France, and revived the cupidity of the slave-dealers whose vessels had for six years remained in harbor unproductive.

        When, however, Bonaparte began seriously to reflect on all that had taken place, his satisfaction was not a little diminished. It was true that he held under his domination the South rich in manufactures and the East fertile in pasturage. But what had he conquered? Lands in ashes. Port-au-Prince had miraculously escaped from the incendiary torch. But what a sight in other parts! Those barbarians do not place the keys of their cities at the feet of their conquerors. Toussaint, designated a bandit, is a formidable General in his mountains. The Consul applies himself to study that remarkable man. He is the soul of the war, and him he must reach, seize, and put in chains. That accomplished, what then? He must attach to himself the men of mixed blood, who are already partly his. Then discord must be disseminated. The black in revolt will be overcome by the subjugated black. This was the Consul's policy. These were his means for bringing the island into subjection. To this purpose, and for these results, he wrote to Leclerc. But suddenly the war took a new aspect.

        Twelve thousand men, the bravest soldiers of the Republic, are assembled near Petite Rivière to put down a revolted slave! Rochambeau, Hardy, Debelle, generals of great skill and high powers, are stopped in a ravine by a handful of revolted slaves! their passage is barred, their valor rendered nugatory by a few men whom they despise! Officers and soldiers, who have gained

victory and renown against the first troops of Europe, perish in huge numbers under the blows of half-civilized blacks. So much do the issues of war depend on opportunity; so dear is freedom; so odious is servitude.

        The first division which came up to the attack of Crête-à-Pierrot was that of Debelle. As soon as the French troops were seen in the redoubt, Dessalines opened the gates. "The gates have been opened," he said, "for those who do not feel themselves courageous enough to die; while there is yet time, let the friends of the French depart; they have nothing but death to look for here." After having sent away all whom sickness or fear made desirous of going, he spread a train of gunpowder as far as the first gate, and, seizing a torch, exclaimed, "Now for the first fire; I will blow up the fort; if you do not defend it." During these things, the French were advancing, preceded by a herald (4th March, 1802). The herald held a letter in his hand. Dessalines ordered his men to fire. The herald fell dead. Firing began on both sides in real earnest. For several hours it continued without an interval. The French rushed forward with their usual bravery and enthusiasm, but it was only to meet death. The moment they were within reach, the batteries were opened and the ground was strewed with dead. The General-in-chief, Debelle, was grievously wounded, as well as Brigadier-General Devaux. The division was compelled to fall back with the loss of four hundred men.

        This defeat deeply affected the mind of Leclerc, who was then at Port-au-Prince. Was his victorious career, then, to be delayed by a single stronghold? Not without apprehension he hastened to the scene of action. He brought with him the division of Boudet. While the troops were assembling, a scout of Toussaint's, in his zeal to ascertain all he could, entered their camp, pretending to be a deserter. In the midst of his guard, General Boudet questioned the man. When the former asked him how many whites he had put to death, the latter with well-feigned fear, appeared overwhelmed. In the twinkling of an eye, having learnt the condition of the French, he leaped

from his horse. Boudet, the first to observe the movement, attempted to seize him, and had his thumb nearly bitten off. The man got away, slipped beneath the horse's legs, overthrew the soldiers who attempted to stop him, ran toward the Artibonite, plunged into the stream, and escaped amid a shower of balls. Arrived on the opposite bank, he appeared to have been struck, for he fell as if his thigh was broken. The presence on the other side of the river of a reconnoitring party of the foe prevented pursuit. The black scout, who had the rank of captain, appears to have been carried off by his friends.

        Among the troops which now advanced to the attack, there were Rigaud and Pétion. True to his instructions, Leclerc added to the skill of the white soldiers the fury and the animosity of mulatto blood.

        In the interval which had elapsed since the first attack, Dessalines had erected a new fort on an eminence which commanded that on which stood the famous Crête-a-Pierrot. The new redoubt, though hastily constructed, was to witness the defeat of the Consul's boastful brother-in-law.

        The French, in advancing, surprised a camp of blacks who were asleep. They fell on them; the blacks ran toward the fort and the French pursued them. Those who could not enter the fort threw themselves into the moat. Immediately the fort opened its fire and mowed down the assailants. General Boudet received a wound. At the moment when his division was on the point of perishing, that of Dugua came up. Forthwith, that general was struck. Only one general officer kept the field. Then the blacks rushed to the charge. The French retreated. In the retreat, Leclerc himself, who came up with reinforcements, received a serious contusion. This second attack cost the Captain-General eight hundred men.

        In their retrograde movement, the Europeans had opportunities of ascertaining how entirely the population was in enmity against them. On the plantations, they saw the laborers watching their movements. Those laborers exchanged shots with the soldiers who flanked the column. If a party of scouts

were detached, they fled; as soon as the scouts retired, they reappeared. The French army inspired only terror.

        A third attack was to be made. The stronghold was regularly invested. Fresh troops had come up. All that ability, experience, labor, and prowess could contribute was set in vigorous action.

        While the operations for the blockade were proceedings, the French soldiers heard from the strongholds the words of the very songs to which they had themselves marched against the enemies of liberty in Europe. The effect was singular and deep. "What! those black men the injured, and we the injurers! those black men the oppressed, and we the oppressors! Are we, then, no longer the servants and patrons of liberty? The Republic gives freedom; we are fighting for servitude." Such impressions were little likely to increase the efficiency of republican soldiers. Their duty they continue to do, but services higher than a mere sense of duty can command, were now required.

        By degrees, the works were completed and brought into play against the redoubt. Partial successes were obtained. Encouraged by these, Rochambeau thought himself able to carry a battery, which he had for a moment silenced, by one blow. He lost three hundred men in the useless attempt. Then a constant cannonade was commenced. From the 22d to the 24th of March, it was carried on with great activity. The redoubt was in the greatest peril.

        At this time a black man and a black woman were captured. Suspected to be spies, they were subjected to the severest punishment. The man said he was blind; nothing but the whites of his eyes were to be seen. Only in leaning on the aged negress, his companion, did he appear able to walk. She affected to be deaf. Scarcely anything but groans and sobs could the cruellest treatment extort from them. At length, compassion prevailed. They were bid go about their business. They had dreadfully suffered, and seemed unable to move. Not before they were threatened to be shot did they attempt to walk.

They were conducted beyond the outlying sentinels. When fairly out of the reach of their enemies, they began to dance, and instantly darted off for the fort, where they were received. They conveyed to its commander intelligence of the approach of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

        That very night (March 24) an attack was made on the French lines which was repulsed only with difficulty and loss. That attack was led by Toussaint himself, who had conceived a project worthy of his own genius. Having reason to think the North could for some time give him no more trouble, and afraid lest Crête-a-Pierrot might be carried by storm, he hastened to the Artibonite, intending with a few trusty soldiers to penetrate to Leclerc's headquarters, make him prisoner, and ship him off to France. To aid him in his daring plan, a feint was made in the attack of which we have just spoken. And the captured fugitives were sent to encourage the garrison to hold out.

        The stratagem was too late. Lamartinière, who had taken the command with his accustomed bravery, had done and endured everything that man can do and endure. With his soldiers he patiently bore hunger, thirst, sickness, exhaustion, and the prospect of death at any moment. With their aid, he performed prodigies of heroism. But stone walls are not proof against cannon-balls and bombs. The forts were defended against thousands of brave Frenchmen, even when falling into ruins. But the hour at length came. Then, when resistance was vain, the commander resolved to cut himself a passage through the ranks of his enemies. He escaped from the hands of 12,000 men, not having lost half his garrison, and leaving to his assailants only the dead and the wounded amid a heap of ruins.

CHAPTER VII.

        Shattered condition of the French army--Dark prospects of Toussaint--Leclerc opens negotiations for peace--Wins over Christophe and Dessalines--Offers to recognize Toussaint as Governor-General--Receives his submission on condition of preserving universal freedom--L'Ouverture in the quiet of his home.

        DEARLY had the reduction of Crête-à-Pierrot been bought by the French. The loss deeply afflicted the Captain-General, who induced his subordinates to make it appear as slight as possible, remembering the contemptuous terms in which he had spoken of Toussaint and his forces, and well dreading the moral effect on the inhabitants of the island.

        After the capture of this stronghold, Leclerc took measures for reëstablishing his communications. He ordered Rochambeau's division to open them by forming a junction at Gonaïves with Desfourneaux; and directed Hardy, with his forces, to make for the Cape. The latter division were compelled to form for themselves a road with their arms in their hands. Under the impression that the invaders had suffered a total defeat, Hardy had with him only bands of fugitives who hastened to the Cape in order to fly by sea from the island, while on the whole line of his march, he encountered opposition from regular troops or armed laborers. But for the courage of the soldiers who were kept under discipline, and the judgment and energy of the commanders, the whole division would have perished. From four to five hundred men were lost on the route.

        While the divisions of Rochambeau and Hardy proceeded toward the North, that of Boudet, under the command of General Lacroix, was commanded to return to Saint Marc in order to attack Belair, who up to that time had remained in observation

on the heights of Matheux, which stand to the southeast of that post, between it and Mount Cahos. We give a report of the undertaking, in the words of its leader:--

        "We climbed the heights by the sources of Mount Ronis. I had often heard speak of a 'carabined road,' but I was, I avow, far from forming an idea of the obstacles which I had to overcome in order to open the carabined road of Matheux. Yet was I expert in work of the kind, having a year before opened the passage of Splugen. In the memorable campaign of the army of reserve, I had also traced, round Fort Bard, routes on peaked mountains declared impassable. I had conveyed cannon by those roads, thus executing an enterprise till then regarded as impossible. That path round Fort Bard threw down the barrier which stood against the fortune of the First Consul; by that road the army of reserve gained the plains of Piedmont and reconquered Italy on the field of Marengo. Precipices and road accidents are everywhere the same; but in the Alps the bushwood is at least accessible, and the trees are of a determinate height, while in America the former are fine mountains and the latter colossal masses which you can scarcely take in in one view, and which you can displace only by strength of arm and length of time. I doubt whether I could have been able to gain the plateau of Matheux if Belair had added the efforts of his resistance to the obstacles of the locality in which he was.

        "After the most fatiguing march, I at last arrived at Matheux. Belair had quitted the plain the previous evening to join Dessalines on Mount Cahos.

        "I wrote to him, suggesting that he should imitate the examples of Generals Clervaux, Paul L'Ouverture, and Maurepas, and announcing that I was authorized by the Captain-General to guarantee to him and to his officers their military rank. He answered that he blindly followed the authority of Toussaint L'Ouverture, recognized governor for life, by the constitution of the colony, and by his numberless services, which France seemed disposed to disown.

        "The lofty position of Matheux presented to us the aspect of the champaign lands of France; we there found its atmosphere; the lungs of our soldiers dilated; we were agile; on the contrary, the blacks, whom we had as auxiliaries, wore a shrunk appearance. In the different gorges of the mountain, we delivered from five to six hundred persons who had fled thither from Saint Marc and the neighboring lands. Hardy and Rochambeau had set at large a thousand fugitives in Mount Cahos.

        "I collected on Matheux a large number of horses, mules, and horned cattle, which Belair had got together. Two days after, I began to march toward Port-au-Prince. A letter was brought me from General Boudet, who, directing me to conduct his division to that city, requested that I would make a processional entrance into it, and that in so doing, I should make the troops appear as numerous as possible, in order to efface from the minds of the men of color in the West the impressions they had received as to the extent of our loss. I put the troops into two ranks: our sections marched at great distances; all our officers were on horseback; artillery ready for the field was sent to meet me; I distributed it in the column with the baggage; and our entrance produced the moral effect which we expected." *

establish on a permanent basis that constitution which had been so wisely constructed, and that liberty which had been purchased at so large a price, and of which the Haytian negroes had proved themselves so worthy? Alas! such a friendly power did not exist. England and the United States were both committed to the support of slavery; and the great war of the African world had to be fought out by Toussaint alone. Well was the conflict sustained, and though the immediate result was adverse, the strife, we trust, will not have to be renewed. If the plains, the mountains, and the ravines of Saint Domingo say nothing effectually on behalf of negro rights, surely they cry with so loud a voice, declaring the horrors of a war of "bloods," that even fear will suffice to break the bonds of the slave!

        From the ruins and carnage of Crête-à-Pierrot, L'Ouverture hastened to the recesses of Mount Cahos, whither he had ordered the brave defenders of that post to follow him. They, as well as he, needed a few days' repose. And there, where he had for some time formerly dwelt, he met his wife and family, and in their society enjoyed a short tranquillity. Of this brief leisure he availed himself to write to Bonaparte in order to explain to him the conduct of General Leclerc and to ask him to send another to take his place, into whose hands he might resign the command of the island.

        This was an hour for calm reflection Toussaint L'Ouverture did not let slip. Thoughtful by nature, he now, by the force of circumstances, was drawn to the consideration of his past career and his present position. He had effected much. At one time, he thought he had achieved the permanent freedom of his color. But, alas! the constitution had not been ratified. In defence of that solemn national act, he had not only again and again risked his life and nearly forfeited all he possessed, but he had given many a severe lesson to its assailants, and taught them to respect and fear a man whom they disgracefully attempted to enslave. Yet amid these triumphs, the final success of his undertaking seemed now to recede into distant mists.

The present was dark and gloomy. Leclerc, with shattered forces, was still strong, and should the army now under his command be annihilated, it could easily be replaced by the inexhaustible resources of France. Yet, so long as he himself lived, he was bound to labor in the sacred cause he had undertaken. With the past full in his view, he could not despair. Any way it is for man to deserve, as it is for God to give, success.

        Instead of sinking beneath his sense of the great loss suffered by the destruction of Crête-à-Pierrot, Toussaint, after a brief interval, resumed hostile operations with an active energy, not surpassed even in his days of triumph. He had indeed disappeared from the view of his foes, but it was only to deceive them by false and rapid marches, to prepare ambuscades, to harass them on their flanks and in the rear; to make them sink under the fatigue, hunger, thirst, and want of sleep he compelled them to undergo. Now he covered his flight by deserts and by flames to make their victory more baneful than ordinary defeat; now he waited for his prey in a defile, always doing much, by the force of his genius, to carry the warfare beyond all acknowledged rules. Christophe in the North Dessalines in the West, supported his adroit and rapid movements. At the sound of the church-bells, he sent forth from the pulpit a manly and magical eloquence, which painted to the eye and impressed on the heart the horrors of servitude and the delights of liberty, and preached a religion which, acknowledging all men as brothers, disclaimed and condemned slavery, and made his soldiers feel that in fighting for freedom they fought on the side of God and Christ. His sermon over, he resumed the soldier and the general, disappeared, flew, reappeared, and seemed almost as if he possessed a species of omnipresence. All the time he had an army at his command, though where they were, or what the number and resources of his troops, was hidden to all but himself and a chosen few; while, by means as sure as they were hidden, he learnt all that took place among his assailants. Moved by his authority, his

spies and scouts, now in appearance blind, deaf, lame, and now beggars or fugitives, made light of toil, peril, and torture in a service which religion, as well as civil obedience, seemed to them to exact.

        The different bodies of the French army, who believed Toussaint ruined, if not dead, felt his blows on every side. As they returned to the Cape, or to Port-au-Prince, he disturbed them, beat them, worried them, alike in their communications, in their attacks, in their marches, in their retreat. Everywhere he carried alarm and dread. When the soldiers entered the Cape, Toussaint appeared in its suburbs. The city required both walls and defenders. The blacks, if they appeared to be friends, proved to be enemies in reality. With all dispatch, Leclerc raised anew the fortifications of a town in which, more than ever, the party of servitude and the party of liberty disputed and contended. In that war no man knew his neighbor; you lived side by side with your enemy; you slept under the same roof; you ate at the same table with him, and yet you knew him not; for there were blacks on the side of the Consul, and there were whites on the side of Toussaint. At length, arms were taken up. The ships supplied cannon, and the sailor was brought on shore to fight. Only the more vigor did Toussaint put forth, and the city was about to become his prey when fresh troops arrived from France, and the black hero thought it prudent to retire.

        The position of Leclerc had become one of extreme difficulty. By painful experience he had learned with what singular enemies he had to contend. Of what use was it to continue a war in which victories cost so much and were so readily effaced by reverses? Already had he lost five thousand men in battle; a like number, sick or wounded, were in the hospitals. Besides, the war offered no reward. What glory was there even in totally subjugating semi-barbarian blacks? Conquest, instead of enriching the soldier, only carried him into burning towns or desert mountains. The army murmured; the climate was intolerable; the work they had to perform was repulsive. "The

Consul," they said, "has sent us here to perish, companions though we are of his achievements and sharers in his glory."

        These, and similar complaints, which reached the ears of the captain of the expedition, occasioned him lively disquietude, the rather because his army was attacked by a malady which, bad as it was, threatened to become more deadly; and although he expected fresh troops, scarcely would all suffice to keep the population in order, to say nothing of the exigencies of war. He had, it is true, many blacks under his banners, but could he count on their fidelity? Did he not know that their chiefs, who showed the most zeal and devotion, were wrapped in impenetrable dissimulation, and that he kept them obedient only by reiterated promises of liberty.

        The people of color appeared to him more devoted, but had they not, in preceding wars, passed now into the party of the whites, and now into that of the blacks, as much from inconstancy as for the sake of liberty? The barbarous chiefs, however, who were his enemies, gave him most concern; Christophe, filled with prowess and intrepidity; Dessalines, that savage Achilles, of unequalled courage and fury; Toussaint, who by his prolific genius was capable of everything, who escaped only to reappear, who everywhere caused foes to spring up under the feet of his army, as if they were born of the mountains.

        Reflecting on these things,--counting his losses, surveying his disappointments, measuring his enemies, calculating his difficulties, and forecasting his prospects,--Leclerc came to the determination that he should act wisely if he tried what could be done in the way of negotiation. Should the attempt fail, he would have gained time; should it succeed, he would have put an end to a doubtful and disastrous war.

        Among the heads of the hostile army, Christophe had shown the least aversion to accommodation. With him, Leclerc commenced his negotiations; he intimated to Christophe that as the mother country would unquestionably give legal confirmation to the abolition of servitude, the war was useless and without an object, and that the sole obstacle to peace being the ambition

of Toussaint, he would arrange with him in order to arrest that chief in the most secret manner possible. Instead of becoming the instrument of that perfidy, Christophe replied in language and tones of virtue, saying that to arrest his friend, his companion, his chief, would be to betray at once friendship and honor, as well as his country; and that a treason so disgraceful could not for a moment be entertained by him. He ended his letter with these words: "Show us the laws which guarantee our liberty, then Toussaint, my brethren, myself,--all of us,--will with joy throw ourselves into the arms of our mother country. How could we believe the Consul's words, brought to us as they were amid demonstrations of war? Excuse," he added, "the fears and the alarm of a people which has suffered so much in slavery. Give it grounds of confidence if you desire to terminate the calamities of Saint Domingo; then, forgetting the past, we shall in security enjoy the present and the future."

        Struck with the wisdom and energy of this reply, Leclerc felt that it was more than ever necessary to put away all idea of slavery, which could be restored only in very different circumstances. With this view he dealt freely in protestations. The Consul, he urged, could not have proposed laws for a country with which he was not acquainted; but in the name of the Supreme Being, the avenger of falsehood, he affirmed that the liberty of the blacks was the basis of the laws which would be passed.

        An interview ensued, and, in reliance on the protestations and the oath of Leclerc, Christophe went over to the French with twelve hundred men, surrendering the mountains of Limbé, Port-François, and Grande Rivière, with an immense amount of warlike stores.

        Christophe immediately sought an interview with Toussaint, and, among other things, remarked that Leclerc appeared very sorry at having undertaken the war, that he had done so in the persuasion that he could soon bring it to a successful termination, and that, being now disabused of that error, was desirous

of concluding a peace; adding that, at the express request of the Captain-General, he wished to converse with Toussaint on the subject.

        On his part, Toussaint complained that Christophe had listened to overtures from the enemy, contrary to military discipline, since he had no authority from his superior officer. Before leaving, Christophe put into the hands of Toussaint a letter from Leclerc. Prevented, at the moment, from reading the communication, Toussaint did not learn till after Christophe's departure, that he had gone over to the French. The regret which he felt gave place to astonishment, and astonishment was succeeded by indignation. He sent for Adjutant-General Fontaine, the chief of his staff, and to him alone communicated the contents of the letter, directing him to go to Christophe, and command him to repair to the headquarters at Marmelade, in order to explain his conduct. The traitor affected compliance. Many of his officers, on hearing of the mission of General Fontaine, declared that they had been misled. On his return, that officer reported the surrender of Port-François and other places. Toussaint L'Ouverture assembled his chief officers, and announced to them the extraordinary event. Christophe's conduct appeared to them no less incomprehensible than blameworthy. The news having spread among the people and the soldiers, they burst forth in reproaches against him, and by a spontaneous movement assembled around Toussaint's dwelling to assure him of their fidelity and devotedness.

        In this conjuncture, the hope of an approaching peace, which for a moment even Toussaint had indulged, vanished wholly. The warlike spirit became universal, together with indignation at the treachery. All swore to die for their chief, because in so doing they would die for liberty. Toussaint's orders flew on all sides in order to prevent or abate the consequences of the perfidy. He still had, in the West and in the North, faithful battalions and devoted districts. The less his resources became, the more grand did his character appear. Had fortune, then, abandoned him? Could he no longer look to the highest of all

powers, whose work he had undertaken, and by whose hand he had been guided and protected? Was his country, after all, to fall under the dishonorable yoke of servitude? Adversity crushes only ordinary men. Toussaint took courage even from despair.

        Shortly, he learned that Dessalines had imitated Christophe and joined the ranks of the enemy. This was the second heavy blow. Toussaint did not so much regard the individual loss of these two leaders, nor the loss of the troops they carried with them, nor the loss of the lands they commanded, as the loss of his own influence which must ensue, and the perplexity in which he found himself as to who was and who was not trustworthy. His best captains,--Christophe, Dessalines, Laplume, Clervaux, his two brothers, his nephew were in the camp of his foes. Where could he be sure to find men worthy of his confidence?

        Under these circumstances it was that Leclerc put every means into action in order to induce Toussaint to come to an accommodation. The Captain-General was the more desirous of such a result because, though he knew that Toussaint's power was broken, he knew also that the population at large were wholly alienated from his own Government, and might at any moment be roused to a resistance more determined and more sanguinary than what they had made already. With a view to appease the hardly suppressed ill-humor, Leclerc had sent Rigaud out of the island, hoping thereby to gain some favor with the blacks. The effect on the whole was inconsiderable. Even after their treachery, the negro chiefs were idols, while Frenchmen were objects of indifference or detestation. This contrasted feeling was observed, and is spoken of by an eye-witness thus:--

        "On arriving at the Cape, I had occasion to make very serious reflections. I saw many of our general officers in full uniform pass by; the inhabitants, no matter what their color, showed no sign of exterior deference. Suddenly I heard a noise,--it was General Dessalines; he came for the first time

to pay his respects to the Captain-General Leclerc. The population of both sexes and of all colors rushed to meet him; they fell down at his approach. I was saddened rather than revolted. Dark and painful ideas accompanied me to the mansion of the General-in-chief. In the antechamber I found General Dessalines. The horror he inspired me with kept me at a distance from him. He asked who I was, and came to me, and without looking me in the face, said, in a rough voice, 'I am General Dessalines; in bad times, General, I have heard you much spoken of.' His bearing and his manners were savage; I was surprised at his words, which announced assurance rather than remorse. The barbarian must have felt himself powerful, or he would not have dared to take that attitude." *

        Noble resolution! resolution worthy of all thy previous conduct, thou noble-hearted man! All for others, nothing for thyself! Yet had he now the option of retaining supreme power in the island, sanctioned and guaranteed by French authority. And out of that supreme power, were he ambitious, he might have carved a crown. But didst thou think that thy frank disinterestedness might be turned to thy own ruin? The possibility could hardly have escaped thy sagacious and foreseeing mind. Nevertheless, rather wilt thou incur any personal risk than prolong the horrors of this war, which every day becomes more fratricidal and more disastrous!

        As a consequence of this accommodation, an interview between Toussaint and Leclerc was agreed on. It was proposed that they should meet on a spot in the mountains of Mornay. Learning that the place had given rise to suspicions, Toussaint magnanimously resolved to repair to the Cape. His journey was a triumph. Everywhere crowds pressed and prostrated themselves before the hero. They hailed him as their friend; they hailed him as their liberator; for in their acclaim they bore in mind that the liberty for which he had fought was sanctioned and secured by the Captain-General's solemn oath. His arrival at the Cape was announced by salvos from both the sea and the land forces. The multitude surrounded him with demonstrations of love and veneration; the mother pointed him out to her child, and girls strewed his path with flowers. Leclerc received him in his mansion, situated near the sea. During the interview, four hundred horsemen, who had accompanied Toussaint, stood near, drawn up in order and with bare sabres. To the Captain-General Toussaint was no longer a fanatical slave in revolt, and condemned to death, nor was he an unnatural father. The Consul's brother-in-law took pains to laud his good faith and his magnanimity. He dwelt with emphasis on the reconciliation thus ratified, which would restore prosperity to the colony. He repeated his oath in presence of the chiefs of the two armies. "General," he said, "one cannot but praise you and admire you when one has, as you have

done, borne the burden of the government of Saint Domingo. Your presence in this city is a proof of your magnanimity and your good faith. Our reconciliation will make this island, of which you are the restorer, bloom again; and will consolidate its new institutions, which are the fundamental basis of the liberty and the happiness of all."

        "When the people of Saint Domingo," replied L'Ouverture, "triumphed in a war foreign both in relation to France and to themselves, they never thought that they should ever have to resist their natural protector. If explanations had preceded your arrival in this island, the cannon would not have bee fired, except to welcome the envoy of a great power, and you would, on reaching these shores, have seen no other lights than feux de joie. You knew for certainty that I was at Santo Domingo. There was still time to send me news of your mission. When you were before the Cape, General Christophe begged you to grant him delay sufficient to acquaint me with the fact that a French squadron was on our shores; you might reasonably have acceded to his request, instead of reducing the people to despair by your threats, and exposing your army on the crater of a volcano."

        Leclerc admitted that pilots, whom he had taken near the bay of Samana, had assured him that Toussaint L'Ouverture was at Santo Domingo. "But I am the brother-in-law of the First Consul; I am Commander-in-chief of a French army, and consequently in position and rank superior to General Christophe, and I did not think it consistent with my dignity to stop before a brigadier-general, and to listen to all his allegations."

        "Nevertheless," rejoined Toussaint, "you waited for four days, and you will agree that some days more would not have done an injury to your honor, since, according to the words and the letter of your brother-in-law, you are intrusted with only a pacific mission. It seems to me that by patience you would have served equally France and Saint Domingo."

        "It is true; but I was not master of myself. Let us retain no recollection of the past; all shall be repaired. Let us,

General, rejoice at our union. Your sons, the officers who have accompanied you, as well as the generals and officers of my army, who are here, must be witnesses of our common gladness." At these words the door of the hall opened, and at Leclerc's invitation all the persons who were in the next apartment entered and took their places. In their presence the Captain-General renewed his oaths. During this exchange of words, Leclerc, pressing Toussaint as to the reduced condition of his resources, asked him where he could have obtained arms to continue the war. In a truly Lacedemonian manner the hero replied, "I would have taken yours."

        Presently there entered a fine boy who leapt on the neck of Toussaint L'Ouverture,--it was his youngest son. During the war he had been lost by his father, and carried off by the French. Taken to the Cape, he was consigned to the care of his tutor; and now, as a touching pledge of friendship, he had been restored to his father, who was deeply affected by thus recovering his beloved child.

        In returning from this conference, in the details of which we learn on how insignificant causes depend peace and war with all their mighty issues, Toussaint L'Ouverture passed through the posts of the French army, in the midst of the acclamations of the soldiers, the militia, and the people, who crowded around him; and under salvos of artillery, entered Marmelade, where the commander received him at the head of his own troops. The day following, he addressed the grenadiers and the dragoons of his guard. Having spoken to them of the peace, and shown them that it could not be violated except by perjury, he praised their courage, and thanked them for the love and devotedness they had displayed toward himself, and solemnly declared that the recollection of their deeds would forever remain engraven on his mind. In order to testify to them his satisfaction, and at the same time take his farewell, he embraced all their officers. Those brave and hardy veterans could not restrain their tears, and the soldiers were sad and inconsolable. Toussaint then took the road for Ennery, which he had chosen for his residence.

When near it, he was surrounded by crowds of people, who shouted out, "General, have you abandoned us?"

        "No, my children," he answered; "all your brethren are under arms, and the officers of all ranks retain their posts."

        When Toussaint L'Ouverture had fixed himself in the fertile and delightful valley of Ennery, to enjoy the repose of private and domestic life, he found occupation a necessity, and employed his energy in repairing and improving the dwellings of the inhabitants, and dispensing around him other benefits. Though retired from the world, he was not forgotten. Generals and other officers of the French army, and strangers from distant lands, came to visit him, and were welcomed with an affability which was a part of his nature. Exempt from fear and disquietude, he lived in the bosom of his family as if he had been guarded by an army. He rode over the country, and was everywhere greeted with tokens of respect.

        With the cessation of hostilities, bands of black troops descended from the mountains, and the two armies mingled together as brothers. Freedom rendered friends those whom slavery had made deadly enemies. The population laid down their arms to engage in the labors of the field. The dwellings, which the fear of servitude had burned down, rose again under the reign of liberty. With a view to confirm the peace, the captain of the expedition put into the hands of Christophe the police of the North, and into Dessalines the police of the West. The cities which had been consumed were rebuilt. Vessels soon filled the ports. Commerce began once more to flourish. Everything promised a smiling future. Songs were heard, and dances were seen in the villages. The whole country offered a proof how happy this world would be but for the disturbances occasioned by human passions.

BOOK III.

FROM THE RAVAGES OF THE YELLOW FEVER IN HAYTI UNTIL THE DEPORTATION AND DEATH OF ITS LIBERATOR.

CHAPTER I.

        Leclerc's uneasy position in Saint Domingo from insufficiency of food, from the existence in his army of large bodies of blacks, and especially from a most destructive fever.

        ERELONG, the natural consequences of the ravages which had been carried over the country, and of the abstraction from agriculture of a large portion of the population, were felt in scarcity of provisions, the rather that Saint Domingo did not abound in articles of human food of a superior kind. This scarcity was augmented by the necessity of supporting out of he public magazines a large number of soldiers; for, though the European part of the army was much reduced, a large number of blacks and men of color had been thrown on the government stores. Shortness of food, and the high prices which ensue, are specially trying to a government of force. Complaints began to spread among the native population, and not without difficulty were the servants of the State supplied with the necessaries of life.

        Application for aid was made to the governors of foreign possessions in the neighborhood. The Spaniards furnished supplies with chivalrous generosity; but those supplies were very far from being sufficient. The English, who had not anticipated the success of the French arms, and saw that success with uneasiness, refused to give succor. From Americans a similar answer was received. The conduct of their agents disclosed the regret which their governments felt in not finding at Saint Domingo, under the French sway, the commercial advantages which they enjoyed while it was ruled by Toussaint L'Ouverture. The state of the island, combined with the native politeness of the French character, caused attentions to be paid to

foreign ships and visitors, which were interpreted into tokens of a sense of civil and political weakness. This adverse impression found its way into the minds of the blacks, so that the spirit of the colonial army became increasingly difficult to manage. Thus what at first was the Captain-General's power proved a source of weakness and embarrassment. To provide a remedy, he attempted to incorporate the colonial troops with the reinforcements that came from France, but the prejudices of Europeans rendered the plan all but nugatory. Yet, if it was dangerous to have entire large bodies of blacks, it was not less dangerous to discharge and dismiss them at once. Leclerc had no resource but time, and sought to govern by dividing. Accordingly, he took care to employ black soldiers only in small detachments, and regarded even desertion with satisfaction. He could not, however, feel at ease unless he knew that the blacks were resuming their agricultural labors; and, though in sending them back to the plantations, he received assistance from some of their chiefs, he was made sensible of the want of such an influence as that which Toussaint L'Ouverture had exerted before the war, and effected his purpose only on a limited scale.

        These difficulties, however, though in themselves not small, were inconsiderable compared with those which sprang from a terrible malady with which the island, and especially its European inhabitants, was now visited. The yellow fever, which had already proved destructive, broke out with great violence at the same time at Port-au-Prince and at the Cape. It appeared there in a form unusually repulsive and deadly. It seized persons who were in good health, without any premonition. Sometimes death was the immediate consequence. Happy those who were immediately carried off! Ordinarily it was slow in its progress as well as frightful in its inflictions. The disorder began in the brain, by an oppressive pain accompanied or followed by fever. The patient was devoured with burning thirst. The stomach, distracted by pains, in vain sought relief by efforts to disburden itself. Fiery veins streaked

the eye; the face was inflamed, and dyed of a dark, dull-red color; the ears from time to time rang painfully. Now mucous secretions surcharged the tongue, and took away the power of speech; now the sick man spoke, but in speaking had a foresight of death. When the violence of the disorder approached the heart, the gums were blackened. The sleep, broken, or troubled by convulsions or by frightful visions, was worse than the waking hours, and when the reason sank under the delirium which had its seat in the brain, repose utterly forsook the patient's couch. The progress of the fire within was marked by yellowish spots, which spread over the surface of the body. If, then, a happy crisis came not, all hope was gone. Soon the breath infected the air with a fetid odor, the lips glazed, despair painted itself in the eyes, and sobs, with long intervals of silence, formed the only language. From each side of the mouth spread foam, tinged with black and burnt blood. Blue streaks mingled with the yellow over all the frame. Death came on the thirteenth day, though more commonly it tarried till the seventeenth. All remedies were useless. Rarely did the victims escape.

        The malady produced a general melancholy. Its depressing effects were visible in the troops who had not yet been stricken with the fever. You saw the men regard each other with furtive glances, and in deep yet ominous silence; their arms looked tarnished; their steps were heavy and slow. Unconquerable in the field, they already felt themselves the victims of destiny. When undergoing review, the men, scarcely expecting to see each other again, affected a foolish gayety, the real character of which was betrayed by a bitter smile, or took leave of each other sadly, as pilgrims, through suffering, to the dark shores of the eternal world.

        The city of the Cape then presented one of those sights which are rare in the history of human calamities. Scarcely had a part of the buildings destroyed by the conflagration been hastily reconstructed, when the town and the hospitals were filled with the sick and the dying. The chief hospital, situated

on a height which overhangs the city, having been burnt down, consisted now only of large sheds covered with sugar-canes. Therein the patients were for the most part laid in straw, unprovided with necessary appliances, exposed now to the fury of storms, now to torrents of rain, and now to the burning rays of the sun. Those remaining in the city were better protected and cared for, but breathing an impurer air, and deprived of breezes by the mountains, they suffered scarcely less, and died as certainly.

        Military discipline disappeared; the common soldier had the same authority as the general, and each general acknowledged no authority except his own. Men spoke no more of combats, of exploits, of glory. The heart of the soldier sank within him. Even the funeral knell ceased its mournful sounds; the common calamity crushed the sense of religious observance. In the midst of disorder and confusion, death heaped victims on victims. Friend followed friend in quick succession; the sick were avoided from the fear of contagion, and for the same reason the dead were left without burial. Despair alone remained in activity,--fierce despair; for the dying man could cast his eye on neither friend nor nurse, and had to suffer and expire in terrific solitude or more terrific companionship. The country, the mountains, the sea, afforded no place of refuge. The troops that were removed to a distance from the towns were not the less attacked. Their camp was transformed into a hospital. Soldiers died under trees laden with fruit, and under plants breathing perfumes. The ships of war and merchant vessels lost their crews. Eight-and-forty passengers from Bordeaux expired in disembarking at the Cape. Terrified at the destruction, some, on nearing the island, went on board vessels that were quitting its infected shores, yet perished, smitten by the poisoned air. Four thousand men who came in Dutch vessels perished. Fear multiplied the victims.

        When the malady was in all its force, human passions manifested their guilty excesses. Virtue was disregarded when it no longer offered an earthly reward. Some sought distraction

and relief to their wretchedness in gambling and in voluptuousness; violence and adultery became common. Others endeavored to drown their torments in reckless intoxication; others, again, attired in military costume, which at such a moment was simply ridiculous, threw insult at the disease, and braved death, either in satirical gayety or in buffooneries, or in roars of silly laughter. The words "Ah! the funny fellow," became a derisive phrase to indicate a poor wretch that was trying to laugh or trick away his calamity. Others, again, deep sunk in guilt, sought to deceive Death in the arms of a mistress or in perfumed baths. While all around was perishing, songs were heard from the sea. They were the attempts of men who thus tried to cheat themselves into momentary joy. The nearer men were to eternity, the more greedy they were of the pleasures of earth.

        Pauline, the wife of Leclerc and the sister of the Consul, did not renounce her voluptuous habits in the midst of so terrible a plague. In the hope of breathing a less infected air, she had gone to a country house, on the declivity of a pleasant hill which overhung the sea. Here she passed her hours in pleasure and luxury. She saw die around her officers whose incense she had welcomed, but for whose sufferings she showed no concern,--intent only on putting away all unpleasant objects, and seizing with avidity on sources of gratification. Now she caused herself, like a queen, to be borne in a palanquin through the most beautiful scenes of nature; there would she, for hours together, dwell, in contemplating the ocean and its delightful shores, loaded with the luxuries of tropical vegetation; now she plunged into the depths of odoriferous forests, and surrendered herself to the captivating reveries of love; and now she sailed on the sea, accompanied by courtiers, musicians, and buffoons, as if she would sustain the character of Venus rising from the waves.

        What is still more remarkable is that she took pains to defy the malady by festivities, in which she gathered around her dancing, music, pleasure, and voluptuousness; there she drew on herself admiration by her wit, her graces, her beauty, and

the ravishing tenderness of her looks. But around and in those festivities, Death bore his funeral torches. The balls which she ceased not to give took place on the brink of the grave. The dancers of to-night were dead on the morrow. But the more joyous did she affect to appear. "These," she said, "are our last moments; let us pass them in pleasure."

        As the disorder raged in other places as well as in the cities of the Cape and Port-au-Prince, there died every day, on land and on sea, not less than from three to four hundred persons. More and more irregular in its symptoms and its course, the fever baffled and defied the skill of the physicians, who died together with their patients.

        The little attention which at first was paid to funeral rites became less and less, and soon was wholly discontinued. The dead bodies were put on the outside of the doors and carried off by night. If anything could excite compassion, it was to see on some of those livid frames the scars of wounds received in the battles of Europe, where he had gained his fame who sent those warriors and heroes to die on a distant, foreign, and deadly shore. As it was necessary to remove the dead as soon as they had breathed their last, some were carried off while yet alive; groans were heard in the heaps of abandoned corpses, and from the putrid mass some rose and returned to take their place among the living. As very many bodies were tossed into the sea, the waves bore them up and down the harbor, or left them on the shore, painful mementos to spectators, and food for birds and beasts of prey, while they added to the foul infection with which the atmosphere was burdened.

        During the prevalence of these accumulated disasters, the black population, proof against the pest, remained faithful to the peace which had been forced on them and their venerated chief. Had they chosen to rise, the whole expedition would have perished. Their virtue was more than abstinence from self-avengement. With characteristic hospitality, they received sick persons into their homes, and gave them unlooked-for aid; they did more: they gave them tears and sympathy,--seeing in

them not Frenchmen and assailants, but sufferers. There were other benefactors. Sisters of Charity, truly worthy of the name, went from street to street, and from bed to bed, ministering with tenderness and skill to the sick, the despairing, and the departing. Womanly love was almost the only virtue that maintained itself erect. When all other remedies had proved vain, that noble affection showed itself fertile in resources, nor was it the less respectable because in the extremity it resorted to fetish practices which had their origin in Africa. More simple and even more touching was that manifestation of it which compelled young women to follow their lovers to their graves,--
                         "Amid the faithless only faithful found."
It is terrible to think that some of these worthy women may afterward have been repaid with slavery.

        At length, when the summer heats had reached their height, the malady redoubled its fury, and broke down alike benevolence and virtue. Then was the harvest of death. According to authentic tables, there died fifteen hundred officers, twenty thousand soldiers, nine thousand sailors, and three thousand persons who loosely hung about the skirts of the army in quest of employment or fortune. Not fewer than fourteen generals lost their lives in the plague. Of that number was Debelle, whose virtues made him regretted alike by foes and friends; Dugua, an intrepid and joyous old man, whose hairs had grown gray on the borders of the Nile; Hardy, who had displayed rare courage in the victories and the reverses of the expedition. Almost incredible is it that there died seven hundred medical men, worthy, for the most, of high praise, such was their courage, their patience, their devotedness.

        The malady changed the character of the army. Those who survived, experiencing a long and difficult convalescence, became habitually depressed, morose, or exasperated. Some had their memory weakened; some remained broken down or crippled for life. Discipline was restored with difficulty. Even news from home brought little pleasure, and gave only a transient

relief; and communications with France were intercepted, in order, so far as possible, to conceal from the mother country the awful loss which she had endured.

        Such was the terrible punishment which fell on the predatory expedition sent by the Corsican adventurer against the hero and patriot of Saint Domingo.

        And can there be a more decisive proof of anything than we have here of the honor of Toussaint L'Ouverture? The necessity of the French was his opportunity. With what ease now might he have mustered those blacks which were in Leclerc's way, and extorted from his enfeebled hands the sovereignty of the island. That Toussaint remained quiet at Ennery disproves the base insinuations which were fabricated expressly for his ruin.

CHAPTER II.

        Bonaparte and Leclerc conspire to effect the arrest of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who is treacherously seized, sent to France, and confined in the Chateau de Joux; partial risings in consequence.

        IF the establishment in Saint Domingo of the authority of France had been the object of the expedition, the present settlement of its affairs would have been left to unfold its resources, and the blessings of the existing peace would have been permanent. All opposition had been put down. Mutual explanations had been given. With one exception, the leaders of the blacks held rank and power in the French army. Toussaint L'Ouverture, the only exception, was engaged in rural pursuits and acts of beneficence. Leclerc was sole master in the island. Hayti was now at least a colonial dependency of France. And if there were evils or obstacles which he could not at the moment put away, they were nothing more than such as promised to disappear before good government, aided by the healing and reformatory hand of Time. Even through the tempest of the plague, tokens of coming serenity were readily discerned. But the occupation of the island was only the first act in the drama.

        The intelligence of the ravages of the fever in Saint Domingo shocked the mind of Bonaparte, though he had foreseen and even premeditated the calamity. One obstacle which lay in his way to the imperial throne had been removed. So far the expedition had not proved nugatory. There were two other obstacles. One was the freedom of the blacks. Such freedom, in the Consul's eyes, was licentiousness. It was, moreover, incompatible with his designs. If Saint Domingo remained free, the other French colonies must and would be

free. In their emancipation the colonial system would be endangered, nay, would soon be lost; for freedom was the precursor of independence: and if the colonies became independent, what strongholds would France possess in the West Indies to check the growing power of England; and where would be its outposts to keep the United States in good behavior? Even more important were those dependencies when considered as pastures for the powerful and the aspiring around the Consul's person. Let the colonies be reduced into servitude; then would they naturally enter as constituent parts in an empire under governors with more than the power of ordinary princes, who, with Bonaparte at their head, would form a regular and august political hierarchy, and so lay the basis of a dominion which might extend widely over both hemispheres, if not in time comprehend the civilized world. To the ambitious Corsican the prospect was enchanting. The herds of Haytian negroes must be sent back into slavery.

        This resolution he knew could not be carried into effect so long as Toussaint L'Ouverture lived on the island. His existence there was the second great impediment. That impediment, too, the Consul determined to remove. The determination was the more readily formed because the world had come to regard Toussaint as a sort of rival to Bonaparte. The phrase became current which designated the one "the first of the blacks," and the other "the first of the whites." Comparisons were made between the two which the First Consul always found offensive, and which were not always to the First Consul's advantage. Was his bright star to pale before the fiery meteor of a slave? Besides, that slave had not been easily subdued; he had all but overcome and destroyed the soldiers of Egypt and Italy. When peace was concluded, it was difficult to say whether the assailant or the assailed was in the worse condition. This manly and effective resistance Bonaparte could not forgive. It would have been less intolerable, had it been made by Europeans; but to come from negro slaves--it was an unpardonable offence. Yes, Bonaparte hated Toussaint,

and resolved to effect his destruction. His arrest was the first point to be gained. With Toussaint in his hands, everything else he judged would be easy.

        The First Consul was not to be deterred by the consideration that such a step could not be taken without dissimulation and perfidy. The end covered, if it did not justify, the means, in his eyes. In Leclerc he had a ready and passive instrument. Nor was the Captain-General without his own reasons for the contemplated apprehension. The hatred borne by the master had taken possession of the servant's soul. Little satisfaction did he feel in a peace which a hard fate had induced him to seek and conclude. The popularity of the negro chief caused him to be an object of fear with Leclerc. In the war, the chief glory had been gained by his foe, and now that foe, having become his rival, eclipsed Leclerc in the estimation of the natives of nearly all classes and all opinions. He had, moreover,--and he knew he had,--injured, deeply injured, Toussaint L'Ouverture, and injury invariably begets a hatred in proportion to its own intensity. Besides, the original plan, which so far had been successful, remained to be completed. Leclerc, in consequence, was well disposed to execute the Consul's will.

        Without waiting for express directions in a matter on which he well knew the mind of Bonaparte, the Captain-General began to prepare the way for the final act. For this purpose he spoke of Toussaint, not as an independent power who had of his own accord laid down arms and declined the highest post in the colony, but as a revolter who had been outlawed and condemned to death, but pardoned as an act of grace his own part. Consulting him as to the disposition of the troops, so as to prevent suspicion, he sought occasions which, in extorting complaints from him, might form the grounds of a disagreement, and so afford pretexts for his seizure. Two frigates anchored off Gonaïves. The soldiers no longer paid Toussaint military honors. The plot was dimly seen by friends, who advised the black hero to be on his guard. Some went so far as

to recommend him to take measures for his personal security. He replied, "For one to expose one's life for one's country when in peril is a sacred duty; but to arouse one's country in order to save one's life, is inglorious."

        In order to give some color to the contemplated arrest, Leclerc complained that Toussaint's body-guard had not been wholly disarmed. Toussaint replied that he had given orders for its disbandment, and advised the Captain-General to proceed mildly in bringing that result about. Impatient of contradiction, Leclerc employed force, and with difficulty succeeded. In this opposition an excuse was found for filling the district of Ennery with European troops. The inhabitants complained. Toussaint L'Ouverture became the medium for making those complaints known. "This was exactly what was wanted," says one who knew Leclerc's designs.

        On the 7th of June, General Brunet wrote to Toussaint L'Ouverture the following letter:--

BRUNET, GENERAL OF DIVISION, TO THE GENERAL OF DIVISION,
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.

"HEADQUARTERS AT THE PLANTATION OF GEORGES,
18 Prairial, An. X.

        "The moment, Citizen-General, has come to make known to General Leclerc, in an incontestable manner, those who may deceive him in regard to yourself; they are calumniators, since your sentiments tend only to bring back order in the district which you inhabit. It is necessary to render me aid in order to restore the communication with the Cape, which was yesterday interrupted, since three persons have been murdered by a band of fifty brigands, between Ennery and Coupe-à-Pintade. Send toward those places faithful men, whom you will pay well; I will be accountable for the outlay. There are, my dear General, arrangements which we ought to make in concert, which it is impossible to treat of by letter, but which an hour's conference would terminate. Had I not to-day been overwhelmed with business, I would myself have brought the answer

to your letter. Occupied as I am, I must beg you to come to my residence. You will not find there all the pleasures which I would wish to welcome you with, but you will find the frankness of an honorable man, who desires nothing but the happiness of the colony and your own happiness. If Madame Toussaint, whom I shall have the greatest pleasure to become acquainted with, could accompany you, I should be gratified; if she has occasion for horses, I will send her mine. Never, General, will you find a more sincere friend than myself. With confidence in the Captain-General, and friendship toward all under him, you will enjoy tranquillity.

"I cordially salute you,

"BRUNET."

        Now here is a piece of consummate villany. This man, who signs himself Brunet, who calls himself a man of honor, and who would have run any one through who should have thrown on that honor the slightest doubt,--this man, who probably went to church, and heard mass and professed Christianity, or who, at any rate, did not in private pick pockets or cut throats, this man deliberately sits down and employs his ingenuity in fabricating a tissue of lies in order to ensnare to his ruin an innocent patriot, the liberator of his country. Every word in this diabolical composition is selected with a view to deceive. By implication, inuendo, and direct averment, the tissue of falsehoods goes forward to its end. "You are, you know, alleged to be less quick than might be wished. False, doubtless. Now you may prove how false by acting in concert with me. Come hither, and so convict your calumniators; let the Captain-General see how earnest you are for the furtherance of public tranquillity." This is a dexterous movement. To remind Toussaint that he was suspected was to prepare him for the offered means of exculpation. An innocent man, from a consciousness of his innocence, and a guilty man, in order to affect and display such consciousness, would alike be inclined to accept the expedient. Then for this honorable man, who does not

invent, but merely employs groundless suspicions, he himself is quite confident that his victim is calumniated. "No, in coming to me, you come to a friend who knows the real facts, and so is fully aware of what you have done and are doing to tranquillize the country. But, notwithstanding your efforts, disturbances exist. These must be put a stop to. I have said I have confidence in you; I now show it, for I ask you to take the requisite measures." Excellent Jesuit! Yes, the way to beget confidence is, you well know, to show confidence. But how show confidence so much as by employing a man to put down the very evils he is accused of causing? Surely this, if anything, would make him feel that he is trusted, or at any rate show him how desirable, even for his own bad purposes, if he has bad purposes, it is that he should act as if he felt that he is trusted.

        "Then as to the cost of these efforts, we will settle that when we meet." Yes, it is a small affair of business between two generals of division,--nothing more,--some brigands to exterminate, some expense to be incurred,--all to be amicably talked of when the two friends are taking a glass of wine together, and to be ended by an order for payment on the public purse. What more simple, what more natural, what more straightforward? None but one deeply versed in deceit could have thought of treachery.

        But the tricks are not exhausted. "We must have an interview. For that purpose I intended to come and see you. I had ordered my horse and an escort; but really I cannot leave; I am nailed to the spot. I must throw myself on your goodness; pray, come; I will do all I can to make you comfortable; and bring your wife with you on this little excursion,--a mere party of pleasure. Shall I send my own horses to convey her and her domestics? What! do you hesitate?--still hesitate? Ah! take care you fail not to confide in the Captain-General. Distrust on your part may justify distrust on his part. Insinuations are best repelled by confidingness. And, you know, trust in Leclerc involves friendship toward me. Yes, you must come; you will come."

        In this wily epistle there is only one mistake, but it is a serious one. Brunet declares that he is an honorable man. Over this declaration, you, Toussaint, surely paused. Here the cunning hand displays its cunning. Yet thy guileless nature will not entertain a distrust. In general, the epistle has a fair seeming. You will accept the invitation. Suspicion of treachery is dishonorable to him who entertains it. And had not Toussaint, when the clouds were really dark, gone to the Cape? And did not a friendly arrangement ensue? The oath of Leclerc remained in force. And here was an opportunity not only to benefit his neighbors, but to purge himself from any suspicions which weak men, or designing men, had raised. As to the rumors of peril to himself, the timid always abound in illusions of their own fabrication. A brave man never fears danger, and a wise man is not very careful to shun danger. Besides, the civilities of hospitality have their claims. Clearly, on the whole, there was no valid reason against going, and many valid reasons for going. Toussaint had intended to go to Gonaïves before he received Brunet's letter. He was on his way thither; he turned not back when the invitation was put into his hands.

        Proceeding on his journey, he met Brunet on the plantation called Georges, where the General was waiting for him. For some time they conversed together. Then Brunet begged to be excused, and left the room. The next moment there entered from eighteen to twenty officers, with drawn swords and pistols in their hands. Toussaint L'Ouverture took them for assassins, and arose. He drew his sabre, resolved to sell his life dearly. Then the colonel, who was at the head of the band, seeing that he waited for them with intrepidity, advanced toward him with his sword lowered, and said, "General, we have not come here to attempt your life. We have merely the order to secure your person." At these words, Toussaint put his sword back into the scabbard, saying, "The justice of Heaven will avenge my cause."

        Those prophetic words have had accomplishment; those prophetic

words will have accomplishment; nor ever will they be fulfilled until slavery is blotted out of America, and is known no more in the world.

        From the plantation where he was arrested to Gonaïves, troops had been placed from distance to distance along the road. At midnight, the prisoner was taken on board a French frigate, called the "Creole." The officer who commanded the ship was touched, even to tears, at the lot of that victim of the basest treachery. They sailed for the Cape, where Toussaint was transferred to the Hero, which waited for them off the port. "Adieu, Captain," said the captive, on leaving the Creole; "I shall remember you till my last sigh." When he reached the Hero, he found in his arms St. Jean L'Ouverture, the very son, who, on a brighter day, had been restored to him by Leclerc. Placide L'Ouverture was arrested next day. Isaac was at Ennery. Ignorant that his father had been seized, he was tranquilly reading, about seven o'clock in the morning, when he was startled by a brisk firing, followed by alarming cries. Hastening from the room, he beheld laborers, women, and children, running hither and thither in terror, and from three to four hundred French soldiers firing on them in pursuit. A servant urged him to fly. He feared that evil had befallen his father, but remained. Forthwith he was arrested. The officer told him that his father had been embarked, and that he had orders from General Brunet to apprehend him and all the family; adding that he should not have fired on the people, had they not attempted to bar his passage. The money and the papers belonging to Toussaint L'Ouverture were taken possession of. The house was rifled; insolence was added to robbery. Madame Toussaint and her niece were carried off. "Only a heart of stone," says Isaac L'Ouverture, *

        * "Mémoires d'Isaac, fils de Toussaint L'Ouverture," &c., p. 309.

abode, which was the abode of beneficence and hospitality. Those men, those women, and those children, in the excess of their grief, expressed their fears and their regrets with deep sensibility. "Madame," cried they, "are you leaving us? Shall we never see each other again?" Then, addressing the commanding officer, they added, "Ah, at least, sir, don't kill her, don't kill her children!"--they all believed that Toussaint L'Ouverture himself was dead. That woman who was worthy of those marks of attachment and love quitted her home without taking anything with her.

        Madame Toussaint and her son Isaac and her niece were conducted to the Cape, and put on board the Hero. The vessel forthwith set sail for France. It is related that, in fixing, for the last time, his straining eyes on the mountains made memorable by his exploits, Toussaint L'Ouverture exclaimed, "They have only felled the trunk of the tree (of the freedom of the blacks); branches will sprout, for the roots are numerous and deep."

        And in that confidence, thou large-hearted man, dost thou sail over that waste of waters; saddened, but not overwhelmed. Thou carriest the cause of thy color in thy soul, and, with a mind replete with Christian principles and affections, thou neither doubtest nor despondest. Twenty-five days hast thou to live on the sea, uncertain of thy own fate; but with such knowledge of thy oppressors as must have occasioned dark forecastings. To thy own view, however, thy past is bright. Not for thyself, but for others hast thou toiled and bled; and those others are the outcast, the ignorant, the injured, and the lost. True disciple of thy Galilean Master, bear up in the recollection of his load and his persecutions,--yet heavier than thine. And now, in the hour of darkness, find and acknowledge thy glory, in that which heathen France accounts thy shame. Not on man's judgment dost thou rely. Not by a local tribunal wilt thou be judged. The wide earth will take cognizance of what thou didst attempt and achieve, and pronounce thee a benefactor, not of thy color only, but of thy

kind. Regret not the president's chair, left vacant in thy beloved mother country, nor let men's ingratitude and perfidy sour thy feelings. From high motives thou wroughtest for a high purpose; and that purpose, though not in thine own way, will be attained. Be greater, by patience in the day of thy weakness, than thou wast in the day of thy power by thy valor; and thy name will pass down to posterity, encircled with undying fame. Listen to that solemn voice in thine own heart which tells thee that Hayti will be free.

        On the voyage, Toussaint was denied all intercourse with his family. He was confined constantly to his cabin, and the door was guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets. Uncertain as to his fate, yet apprehensive of a very dark future, he determined to make a solemn appeal to Bonaparte, and prepared the following epistle:--

"ON BOARD THE HERO, 1 Thermidor, an X. (12th July, 1802.)

"GENERAL TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE TO GENERAL BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

        "CITIZEN FIRST CONSUL: I will not conceal my faults from you. I have committed some. What man is exempt? I am quite ready to avow them. After the word of honor of the Captain-General who represents the French Government, after a proclamation addressed to the colony, in which he promised to throw the veil of oblivion over the events which had taken place in Saint Domingo, I, as you did on the 18th Brumaire, withdrew into the bosom of my family. Scarcely had a month passed away, when evil-disposed persons, by means of intrigues, effected my ruin with the General-in-chief, by filling his mind with distrust against me. I received a letter from him which ordered me to act in conjunction with General Brunet. I obeyed. Accompanied by two persons, I went to Gonaïves, where I was arrested. They sent me on board the frigate Creole, I know not for what reason, without any other clothes than those I had on. The next day my house was exposed to

pillage; my wife and my children were arrested; they had nothing, not even the means to cover themselves.

        "Citizen First Consul: A mother fifty years of age may deserve the indulgence and the kindness of a generous and liberal nation. She has no account to render. I alone ought to be responsible for my conduct to the Government I have served. I have too high an idea of the greatness and the justice of the First Magistrate of the French people, to doubt a moment of its impartiality. I indulge the feeling that the balance in its hands will not incline to one side more than to another. I claim its generosity.

"Salutations and respect,

"TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

        When he wrote this high-spirited letter, in which the writer characteristically shows his concern for others more than for himself,--and the tone of which contrasts favorably with that which his oppressor, when fallen, and on the point of quitting Europe for Saint Helena, addressed in true French melodramatic style to the English people,--Toussaint obviously had no idea of the extent of the perfidy to which he was about to fall a victim. He had been seized and carried off, but only, as he thought, that he might be confronted with his maligners, and have a fair trial in France. All he requested, therefore, was an impartial hearing, assured that the even hand of Justice would repair the injuries he had suffered. Little did he then foresee the dreadful end to which he had been destined by the Consul's blind ambition.

        While on board the Hero, Toussaint wrote also to Admiral Décrès, Minister of Marine and of the Colonies:--

        "CITIZEN-MINISTER: I was, with all my family, arrested by the order of the Captain-General, who, nevertheless, had given me his word of honor, and who had promised me the protection of the French Government. I venture to claim both its justice and its good-will. If I have committed faults, I only ought to suffer the punishment of them.

        "I beg you, Citizen-Minister, to employ your interest with the First Consul, on behalf of my family and myself.

"Salutation and respect,

(Signed) "TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

        This simple and dignified letter is reported to have drawn tears from the eyes of the minister. That minister felt the contrast between the dark designs of Government and the unsuspicious tone of the communication. "Justice!" As well ask mercy from tigers; as well seek grapes on a bramble-bush.

        As soon as the vessel arrived at Brest, the First Consul, glad to have so formidable an enemy in his hands, gave free course to his resentment. Without paying any respect to Toussaint's character, fame, services, or former position, he, consulting only his fears and selfish interests, tore him from his family, and began the persecution which was to end in a most painful death. Toussaint was immediately hurried on shore. On the 13th of August, the maritime provost of Brest, at five in the morning, sent an officer of police and four men to transfer the negro chief from the vessel. On the deck only was he permitted to have an interview with his wife and children, whom he was to meet no more in this life. Only his servant was he allowed to take with him. When in the boat, he bade a last adieu to Madame Toussaint, to Isaac, to Saint-Jean, who then remained on board the Hero, and extended his hand to Placide, whom a cruel policy at the same moment was tearing from the arms of his mother, and was conveying on board the corvette La Naïade to Belle Isle en Mer. In the evening, Placide learnt of the removal of his father from the Hero. Previously, he had sent the following letter to him, which was found under Toussaint's pillow:--

"BREST ROADS, 24 Thermidor.

"MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--

        "I am on board the brig La Naïade. As yet, I am ignorant of my lot. Perhaps I shall never see you again. In that I do not accuse my destiny. No matter where I am, I entreat you

to take courage, and sometimes to think of me. I will send you news of myself if I am not dead; give me news of yourselves if you have an opportunity. I am very well situated. I am with persons who are very good to me, and who promise to continue so. Isaac and Saint-Jean, do not forget your brother! I shall always love you. Many kind thoughts to you all; embrace my cousins for me. I embrace you as I love you.

"Your son,

(Signed) "PLACIDE L'OUVERTURE."

        When he thus rudely broke up this amiable and interesting family, the First Consul did not foresee that one day he would be torn away from his wife and son. Curious coincidence in the destiny of the oppressed and that of the oppressor! Bonaparte was repaid in his own coin, nor in this instance merely: others have presented themselves in our narrative. But what a "superfluity of naughtiness" have we here! Why are all the members of the L'Ouverture family involved in their father's ruin? And if stern policy required their deportation from Hayti, why are wife and children separated from their natural head, and why should the aged captive be denied the companionship of her who was the choice of his youth, became the comfort of his adult age, and might still have supported his overladen heart to bear his troubles? Was she severed from him expressly to exasperate his feelings and augment his woes, making his load heavier, the more surely and the more speedily to put an end to his existence? Oh, the depth of wickedness with which what is called policy is chargeable! Reader, be not hoodwinked by general terms. Policy would be nothing without politicians, and when statesmen lose their manhood in statecraft, and perpetrate, in their public capacity, wherein they have power, deeds which they dare not attempt in their individual capacity, wherein they are weak, then do they contract a criminality which should make them abhorred by all good men, and which is a virtual forfeiture of the tenure by which they hold their high position. Office does not change the character

of realities. What is the painful reality here? It is nothing less than theft. Toussaint L'Ouverture was stolen. The First Consul was a man-stealer. He was more, he was a burglar; he broke into Toussaint's house, and, having ransacked and plundered it, he stole the family, after having perfidiously carried off its head. And, having stolen father, mother, and children, he not only separated them one from the other, but murdered, at least, the father. This is plain speaking. At least, it is intended to be so. Crime does not appear crime in men's eyes, unless it is branded as crime. Therefore do I declare and proclaim, that Bonaparte and his accomplices were, and forever remain, guilty of man-stealing, robbery, and murder, in their treacherous, violent, and most wicked conduct toward this virtuous household.

        Madame Toussaint and her children were conveyed to Bayonne, where they were placed under the supervision of General Ducos. L'Ouverture, with his servant, Mars Plaisir, was put on shore at Landerneau, where they were taken in charge by two companies of cavalry. Compelled to quit immediately, Toussaint in one carriage and Mars in another set out for Paris under a strong guard. At Guingamp, some officers of the Eighty-second, who had served under Toussaint L'Ouverture's orders, prevailed on the commander to stop the cavalcade that they might enjoy the opportunity of saluting their old General. The permission was accorded. This was the only solace that the captive enjoyed on the French soil. He reached Paris on the 17th of August, and was immediately imprisoned in the Temple. Thence, without any interview with Bonaparte or his ministers, and without the slightest explanation, he was hurried away into the Department of Jura, and consigned to the dungeons of the Castle of Joux. Singular caprice of what is called history: at that very hour the same prison held in chains Rigaud, the rival and foe of Toussaint. Separated in the busy hours of public life, Toussaint and Rigaud were united by misfortune. And yet the union was little more than nominal, for they were too powerful, even in a dungeon, to be allowed to

confer together. Suffering deserves compassion even when it cannot command respect. Therefore, I leave Rigaud to his endurance, without commenting on his guilt in joining Leclerc's marauding enterprise. Rigaud and Toussaint, the first a man of color, the second a negro, but for your skin, or rather but for European prejudice against your skin, you would not have come to your present unhappy condition. You are dark in hue, therefore are you persecuted. Distinguished representatives of your respective races, there are still men who deal in the like of you as they deal in pigs, in poultry, in flocks, and in herds, and there are others who justify this traffic in human flesh on the ground that your epidermis contains a coloring-matter of a somewhat deeper shade than their own. Yes, to this issue the question comes at last. How long, O reason, shall so patent and flimsy a pretext prevail? A brown complexion, commonly called white, insures and justifies personal immunity and personal freedom; a rather deeper brown, and a complexion of a somewhat sable tinge, insures and justifies the loss