This mass, viewed in regard to origin, was divided thus:— Negroes . . . . . 819,000Men of mixed blood . . . . . 105,000Red Indians . . . . . 1,500Whites . . . . . 500Foreigners . . . . .10,000936,000

The small number of whites was occasioned by the strict enforcement of the law which declared “No white of any nation whatever shall set his foot on this territory, in the quality of a master or proprietor.”

The language prevalent in the west and north is the French; that generally used in the East is the Spanish. Neither is spoken in purity. Not only has the French the ordinary grammatical faults which belong to the uneducated, but out of the peculiar relations in which they have stood in social and political life, as well as the nature of the climate and the products of the soil, a Haytian patois has been formed which can scarcely be understood by Frenchmen exclusively accustomed to their pure mother tongue. And while the educated classes speak and write what in courtesy may be called classic French, the few authors whom the island has produced do not appear capable of imitating, if they are capable of appreciating, the purity, ease, point, and flow which characterize the best French prose writers.

The religion of Hayti is the Roman Catholic. This form of religion is established by law. Under former governments other systems were tolerated. At present the spirit of exclusiveness predominates. The religion of Rome exists among the people in a corrupt state, nor are the highest functionaries free from a gross superstition, which takes much of its force from old African traditions and observances, as well as from the peculiar susceptibilities of the negro temperament. As soon as the native chiefs began to obtain political power in their struggle for freedom they practically recognised the importance of general education, well knowing that only by raising the slaves into men could they accomplish their task and perpetuate their power. Accordingly educational institutions have, from time to time, been set up in different parts of the island. These establishments have received favour and encouragement according to the spirit of the government of the day. At present they receive a support less liberal than that which is bestowed on the army.

The ensuing narrative will show the various forms of government which have established themselves in Hayti since the yoke of the planters and of France was broken. With a tendency to exaggeration, which is a marked feature in the negro character, the present ruler, not content with the title of president or with even that of king, enjoys the high-sounding dignity of emperor.

On the arrival of Columbus, the natives, alarmed, withdrew into their dense forests. Gradually won back, they became familiarized with the new-comers, of whose ulterior designs they were utterly ignorant. With their assistance, Columbus erected, near Cap François, a small fortress which he designated Navidad, (nativity,) from the day of the nativity, (December 25th,) on which it was completed. In this, the first edifice built by Europeans on the Western Hemisphere, he placed a garrison of eight-and-thirty men. When (on the 27th of October, 1493) he returned, he found the settlement in ruins, and learned that his men, impelled by the thirst for gold, had made their way to the mountains of Cibao, reported to contain mineral treasures. He erected another stronghold on the east of Cape Monte Christo. There, under the name of Isabella, arose the first city founded by the Spaniards, who thence went forth in quest of the much coveted precious ore. Meanwhile the new colony had serious difficulties to struggle with. Barely were they saved from the devastations of a famine. Their acts of injustice drove the natives into open assault, which it required the skill and bravery of Columbus to overcome. His recall to Europe set all things in confusion. Restrained in some degree by his moderation and humanity, the natives on his departure rose against his brother and representative, Bartholomew; and receiving support from another of his officers, namely, Rolando Ximenes, they aspired to recover the dominion of the island. They failed in their undertaking, the rather that Bartholomew knew how to gain for himself the advantage of a judicious and benevolent course. The love of a young Spaniard, named Diaz, for the daughter of a native chief, led Bartholomew to the mouth of the river Ozama. Finding the locality very superior, he built a citadel and founded a city there, which, under the name of Santo Domingo, he made his head quarters, intending it to be the capital of the country. Meanwhile Ximenes, at Fort Isabella, carried on his opposition to the Government. Columbus's return to the island in 1498 did not bring back the traitor to his duty. Meanwhile, in Spain a storm had broken forth against Columbus, which occasioned his recall in 1499. The discoverer of the new world was put in chains and thrown into prison by his successor, Bovadillo. With the departure of Columbus, the spirit of the Spanish rule underwent a total change. The natives, whom he and his brother had treated as subjects, were by Bovadillo treated as slaves. Thousands of their best men were sent to extract gold from the mines, and when they rapidly perished in labours too severe for them, the loss was constantly made up by new supplies. In 1501, Bovadillo was recalled. His successor, Ovando, was equally unmerciful. On the death of Queen Isabella, and Columbus, the Haytians lost the only persons who cared to mitigate their lot. Then all consideration towards them disappeared. They were employed in the most exhausting toil, they were misused in every manner; torn from the bosom of their families, they were driven into the remotest parts of the island, unprovided with even the bare necessaries of life. In 1506, a royal decree consigned the remainder as slaves to the adventurers, and Ovando failed not to carry the unchristian and inhuman ordinance into full effect, especially in regard to those who were at work in the mines, four of which were very productive. A rising which took place in 1502, had no other result than to rivet the chains under which the natives groaned and perished. Another in 1503, brought Anacoana, a native queen, to the scaffold. In 1507, the number of the Haytians had by toil, hunger, and the sword, been reduced from a million down to sixty thousand persons. Of little service was it that about this time, Pedro d'Atenza introduced the sugar-cane from the Canaries, or that Gonzalez, having set up the first sugar-mill, gave an impulse to agriculture; there were no hands to carry on the work, for the master laboured not, and the slave, was beneath the sod. Ovando made an effort to procure labourers from the Leucayan isles. Forty thousand of these victims were transported to Hayti; they also sank under the labour. In 1511, there were only fourteen thousand red men left on the island; and they disappeared more and more in spite of the exertions for their preservation made by the noble Las Casas. In 1519, a young Cacique put himself at the head of the few remaining Haytians, and after a bloody war of thirteen years' duration, extorted for himself and followers a small territory on the north-east of Saint Domingo, where their descendants are said to remain to the present day.

Greatly did the island suffer by the loss of its native population; the working of the gold mines ceased, or was carried on to a small extent, and with inconsiderable results; agriculture proceeded only here and there, and with tardy steps; the colony declined constantly more and more on every side. The metropolis alone withstood the prevalent causes of decay, for it had become a commercial entrepôt between the old world and the new. Its prosperity, however, was, in 1586, seriously shaken by the English commander, Francis Blake, who, having seized the city, did not quit it until he had laid one half in ruins. A still greater calamity impended. The reputed riches of the new world, and the wide spaces of open sea which its discovery made known, invited thither maritime adventurers from the coasts of Europe. Men of degraded character and boundless daring, finding it difficult to procure a subsistence by piracy and contraband trade in their old eastern haunts, now, from the newly-awakened spirit of maritime enterprise, frequented, if not scoured by the vessels of England, Holland and France, hurried away with fresh hopes into the western ocean, and swarmed wherever plunder seemed likely to reward their reckless hardihood.

Of these, known in history as the buccaneers, a party took possession (1630) of the isle of Tortuga, which lies off the northwest of Hayti. With this, as a centre of operation, they carried on ceaseless depredations against Hayti, the coasts of which they disturbed and plundered, putting an end to its trade and occupying its capital. The court of Madrid, being roused in self-defence, sent a fleet to Tortuga, who, taking possession of the island, destroyed whatever of the buccaneers they could find; but the success only made the pirates more wary and more enterprising. When the fleet had quitted Tortuga, they again, in 1638, made themselves masters there, and after fortifying the island and establishing a sort of constitution, made it a centre of piratical resources and aggressions, whence they at their pleasure sallied forth to plunder and destroy ships of all nations, wreaking their vengeance chiefly on such as came from Spain. In time, however, these corsairs met with due punishment at the hands of civilised nations.

A remnant of the buccaneers, of French extraction, effected a settlement on the south-western shores of Hayti, the possession of which they successfully maintained against Spain, the then recognised mistress of the island. In their new possessions they applied to the tillage of the land; but becoming aware of the difficulty of maintaining their hold without assistance, they applied to France. Their claim was heard. In 1661, Dageron was sent to Hayti, with authority to take its government into his hands, and accordingly effected there, in 1665, a regularly constituted settlement. At this time the Spanish colony, which was scattered over the east of the island, consisted only of fourteen thousand free men, white and black, with the same number of slaves: two thousand maroons, moreover, prowled about the interior, and were in constant hostility with the colonists.

As yet, the French colony in the west was very weak. Its chief centre was in Tortuga, It had other settlements at Port de Paix, Port Margot, and Léogane. When Dageron came to Hayti with the title of governor, the Spaniards became more attentive to what went on in the west of the island. They proceeded to attack the French settlements, but with results so unsatisfactory, that the new French governor, Pouancey, drove them from all their positions in the west. His successor, Cussy, who took the helm in 1685, was less successful. The Spaniards made head against him, and the French power was nearly annihilated. In 1691, France made another effort. The new governor, Ducasse, restored her dominion, and in the peace of Ryswick, Spain found itself obliged to cede to France the western half of Hayti. With characteristic enterprise and application, the French soon caused their colony to surpass the Spanish portion in the elements of social well-being; and in the long peace which followed the wars of the Spanish succession, Saint-Domingue, (so the French called their part of the island,) became the most important colony which France possessed in the West Indies. It suffered, indeed, from Law's swindling operations, and from other causes, but on the whole it made great and rapid progress until the outbreak of the first revolutionary troubles in the mother country.

Side by side with the advance of agriculture, opulence spread on all sides, and poured untold treasures into France, In a similar proportion the population expanded, so that in 1790, there were in the western half of the island 555,825 inhabitants, of whom only 27,717 were white men, and 21,800 free men of colour, while the slaves amounted to 495,528.

Driven on board the ships which waited their arrival, these poor wretches, who had been accustomed to live in freedom and roam at large, were thrust into a space scarcely large enough to receive their coffin. If a storm arose the ports were closed as a measure of safety. The precaution shut out light and air. Then who can say what torments the negroes underwent? Thousands perished by suffocation—happily, even at the cost of life, delivered from their frightful agonies. Death, however, brought loss to their masters, and therefore it was warded off when possible by inflections which, in stimulating the frame, kept the vital energy in action. And when it was found that grief and degradation proved almost as deadly as bad air and no air at all, the victims were forced to dance and were insulted with music. If on the ceasing of the tempest and the temporary disappearance of the plague, things resumed their ordinary course, lust and brutality outraged mothers and daughters unscrupulously, preferring as victims the young and the innocent. When any were overcome by incurable disease, they were thrown into the ocean while yet alive, as worthless and unassailable articles. In shipwreck, the living cargo of human beings were ruthlessly abandoned. Fifteen thousand, it has been calculated,— fifteen thousand corpses every year scattered in the ocean, the greater part of which were thrown on the shores of the two hemispheres, marked the bloody and deadly track of the hateful slave-trade.

Hayti every year opened its markets to twenty thousand slaves. A degradation awaited them on the threshold of servitude. With a burning iron they stamped on the breast of each slave, women as well as men, the name of their master, and that of the plantation where they were to toil. There the newcomer found everything strange,—the skies, the country, the language, the labour, the mode of life, the visage of his master,—all was strange. Taking their place among their companions in misfortune, they heard speak only of what they endured, and saw the marks of the punishments they had received. Among ‘the old hands,’ few had reached advanced years; and of the new ones, many died of grief. The high spirit of the men was bowed down. For the two first years the women were not seldom struck with sterility. In earlier times the proprietors had not wanted humanity, but riches had corrupted their hearts now; and giving themselves up to ease and voluptuousness, they thought of their slaves only as sources of income whence the utmost was to be drawn. It is not meant that the slaves of the French Haytian planters were worse treated than other slaves. Their condition, on the whole, was slightly better. But the inherent evils of slavery are very baneful and very numerous. Those evils prevailed in Hayti. The slave is helpless, ignorant, morally low, and almost morally dead—reduced as nearly as may be to a tool, a mere labouring machine, yet endued with strong emotions and burning passions. The master is all-powerful, self-willed, capricious, greedy of gain, and given to pleasure. In such a social condition vice and misery must abound; wherever such a social condition has existed, vice and misery have abounded.

IN the midst of these conflicting passions and threatening disorders, there was a character quietly forming, which was to do more than all others, first to gain the mastery of them, and then to conduct them to issues of a favourable nature. This superior mind gathered its strength and matured its purposes in a class of Haytian society where least of all ordinary men would have looked for it. Who could suppose that the liberator of the slaves of Hayti, and the great type and pattern of negro excellence, existed and toiled in one of the despised gangs that pined away on the plantations of the island?

The appearance of a hero of negro blood was ardently to be wished, as affording the best proof of negro capability. By what other than a negro hand could it be expected that the blow would be struck which should show to the world that Africans could not only enjoy but gain personal and social freedom? To the more deep-sighted, the progress of events and the inevitable tendencies of society had darkly indicated the coming of a negro liberator. The presentiment found expression in the words of the philosophic Abbé Raynal, who, in some sort, predicted that a vindicator of negro wrongs would ere long arise out of the bosom of the negro race. That prediction had its fulfillment in Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Toussaint was a negro. We wish emphatically to mark the fact that he was wholly without white blood. Whatever he was, and whatever he did, he achieved all in virtue of qualities which in kind are common to the African race. Though of negro extraction, Toussaint, if we may believe family traditions, was not of common origin. His great grandfather is reported to have been an African king. Whatever position his ancestors held, certain it is that Toussaint had in his soul higher qualities than noble or royal descent can guarantee.

The Arradas were a powerful tribe of negroes, eminent for mental resources, and of an indomitable will, who occupied a part of Western Africa. In a plundering expedition undertaken by a neighbouring tribe, a son of the chief of the Arradas was made captive. His name was Gaou-Guinou. Sold to slave-dealers, he was conveyed to Hayti, and became the property of the Count de Breda, who owned a sugar manufactory some two miles from Cap François. More fortunate than most of his race in their servitude, he found among his fellow-slaves fellow countrymen by whom he was recognised, and from whom he received tokens of the respect which they judged due to his rank. The Count de Breda was a humane man ; as such he took care to entrust his slaves to none but humane superintendants. At the time the plantation of the Count de Breda was directed by M. Bayou de Libertas, a Frenchman of mild character, who, contrary to the general practice, studied his employer's interests without overloading his hands with immoderate labour.

Under him Gaou-Guinou was less unhappy than his companions in misfortune. It is not known that his master was aware of his superior position in his native country, but facts stated by Isaac, one of Toussaint L'Ouverture's sons, make the supposition not improbable. His grandfather, he reports, enjoyed full liberty on the states of his proprietor, He was also allowed to employ five slaves to cultivate a portion of land which had been assigned to him. He became a member of the Catholic Church, the religion of the rulers of Western Hayti, and married a woman who was not only virtuous but beautiful. The husband and the wife died nearly at the same time, leaving five male children and three female. The eldest of his sons was Toussaint-L'Ouverture.

These particulars illustrative of the superiority of Toussaint's family, are neither without interest nor without importance. If, strictly speaking, virtues are not transmissible, virtuous tendencies, and certainly intellectual aptitudes, may pass from parents to children. And the facts narrated may serve to show how it was that Toussaint was not sunk in that mental stagnation and moral depravity of which slavery is commonly the parent.

As might be expected, the exact day and year of Toussaint's birth are not known. It is said to have been the 20th of May, 1743. What is of more importance is that he lived fifty years of his life in slavery before he became prominent as the vindicator of his brethren's rights. In that long space he had full time to become acquainted with their sufferings as well as their capabilities, and to form such deliberate resolutions as, when the time for action came, should not be likely to fail of effect. Yet does it seem a late period in a man's life for so great an undertaking; nor could any one endowed with inferior powers have approached to the accomplishment of the task.

Throughout his arduous and perilous career, Toussaint L'Ouverture found great support himself, and exerted great influence over others, in virtue of his deep and pervading sense of religion. We might almost declare that from that source he derived more power than from all others. The foundation of his religious sentiments was laid in his childhood.

There lived in the neighbourhood of the Gaou-Guinou family a black esteemed for the purity and probity of his character, and who was not devoid of knowledge. His name was Pierre Baptiste. He was acquainted with French, and had a smattering of Latin, as well as some notions of Geometry. For his education he was indebted to the goodness of one of those missionaries who, in preaching the morality of a Divine religion, enlighten and enlarge the minds of their disciples. Pierre Baptiste became the godfather of Toussaint. Holding that relation to the child, he thought it his duty to communicate to him the instructions and impressions he had received from his own religious teacher. Continuing to speak his native African tongue, which was used in his family, Toussaint acquired from his godfather some acquaintance with the French, and aided by the services of the Catholic Church, made a few steps in the knowledge of the Latin. With a love of country which ancestral recollections and domestic intimacies cherished, he took pleasure in reverting to the traditional histories of the land of his sires. From these Pierre-Baptiste laboured to direct his young mind and heart to loftier and purer examples consecrated in the records of the Christian Church.

This course of instruction was of greater value than any skill in the outward processes which are too commonly identified with education. The young negro, however, seems to have made some progress in the arts of reading, writing and drawing. A scholar, in the higher sense of the term, he never became; and at an advanced period of life, when his knowledge was great and various, he regarded the instruction which he received in boyhood as very inconsiderable. Undoubtedly, in the pure and noble inspirations of his moral nature, Toussaint had instructors far more rich in knowledge and impulse than any pedagogue could have been. Yet in his youth were the foundations laid in external learning of value to the man, the general, and the legislator. It is true, that in the composition of his letters and addresses, he enjoyed the assistance of a cultivated secretary. Nevertheless, if the form was another's, the thought was his own; nor would he allow a document to pass from his hands, until, by repeated perusals and numerous corrections, he had brought the general tenour, and each particular expression, into conformity with his own thoughts and his own purpose. Nor is there required anything more than an attentive reading of his extant compositions, to be assured of the superior mental powers with which he was endowed.

In his mature years, and in the days of his great conflict, Toussaint possessed an iron frame and a stout arm. Capable of almost any amount of labour and endurance, he was terrible in battle, and rarely struck without deadly effect. Yet in his childhood he was weak and infirm to such a degree, that for a long time his parents doubted of being able to preserve his existence. So delicate was his constitution that he received the descriptive appellation of Fatrâs-Baton, which might be rendered in English by Little Lath. But with increase of years the stripling hardened and strengthened his frame by the severest labours and the most violent exercises. At the age of twelve he surpassed all his equals in the plantation in bodily feats. Who so swift in hunting? who so clever to swim across a foaming torrent? who so skilful to back a horse in full speed, and direct him at his will? The spirit of the man was already working in the boy.

The duty of the young slaves was definite and uniform. They were entrusted with the care of the flocks and herds. As a solitary and moral occupation, a shepherd's life gives time and opportunity for tranquil meditation. By nature Fatras-Bâton was given to thought. His reflective and taciturn disposition found appropriate nutriment on the rich uplands and under the brilliant skies of the land of his birth. Accustomed to think much more than he spoke, he acquired not only self-control, but also the power of concentrated reflection and concise speech, which, late in life, was one of his most marked and most serviceable characteristics.

Pastoral occupations are favourable to an acquaintance with vegetable products. Toussaint's father, like other Africans, was familiar with the healing virtues of many plants. These the old man explained to his son, whose knowledge expanded in the monotonous routine of his daily task. Thus did he obtain a rude familiarity with simples, of which he afterwards made a practical application. In this period, when the youth was passing into the man, and when, as with all thoughtful persons, the mind becomes sensitively alive to things to come as well as to things present, Toussaint may have formed the first dim conception of the misery of servitude, and the need of a liberator. At present he lived with his fellow-sufferers in those narrow, low, and foul huts where regard to decency was impossible; he heard the twang of the driver's whip, and saw the blood streaming from the negro's body; he witnessed the separation of parents and children, and was made aware, by too many proofs, that in slavery neither home nor religion could accomplish its purposes. Not impossibly, then, it was at this time that he first discerned the image of a distant duty rising before his mind's eye; and as the future liberator unquestionably lay in his soul, the latent thought may at times have started forth, and for a moment occupied his consciousness. The means, indeed, do not exist by which we may certainly ascertain when he conceived the idea of becoming the avenger of his people's wrongs; but several intimations point to an early period in his life. His good conduct in his pastoral engagements procured for him an advancement. Bayou de Libertas, convinced of his diligence and fidelity, made him his coachman. This was an office of importance in the eyes of the slaves; certainly it was one which brought some comfort and some means of self-improvement.

Though Toussaint became every day more and more aware that he was a slave, and experienced many of the evils of his condition, yet, with the aid of religion, he avoided a murmuring spirit, and wisely employed his opportunities to make the best of the position in which he had been born, without, however, yielding to the degrading notion that his hardships were irremediable. Sustained by a sense of duty which was even stronger than his hope of improving his condition, he performed his daily task in a composed if not a contented spirit, and so, constantly, won the confidence of the overseer. The result was his promotion to a place of trust. He was made steward of the implements employed in sugar-making.

Arrived at adult age, Toussaint began to think of marriage. His race at large he saw living in concubinage. As a religious man he was forbidden by his conscience to enter into such a relation. As a humane man he shrunk from the numerous evils which he knew concubinage entailed. Whom should he choose? Already had he risen above the silly preferences of form and feature. Reality he wanted, and the only real good in a wife, he was assured, lay in good sense, good feeling, and good manners. These qualities he found in a widow well skilled in husbandry, a house-slave in the plantation. The kind-hearted and industrious Suzan became his lawful wife according to “God's holy ordinance and the law of the land.” By a man of colour Suzan had had a son, named Placide. Obeying the generous impulses of his heart, Toussaint adopted the youth, who ever retained the most lively sense of gratitude towards his benefactor.

Toussaint was now a happy man, considering his condition as a slave—the husband of a slave—a very happy man. His position gave him privileges, and he had a heart to enjoy them. His leisure hours he employed in cultivating a garden, which he was allowed to call his own. In those pleasing engagements he was not without a companion. “We went,” he said to a traveler, “we went to labour in the fields, my wife and I, hand in hand. Scarcely were we conscious of the fatigues of the day. Heaven always blessed our toil. Not only we swam in abundance, but we had the pleasure of giving food to blacks who needed it. On the Sabbath and on festival days we went to church—my wife, my parents, and myself. Returning to our cottage, after a pleasant meal, we passed the remainder of the day as a family, and we closed it by prayer, in which all took part.” Thus can religion convert a desert into a garden, and make a slave's cabin the abode of the purest happiness on earth.

Bent as Toussaint was on the improvement of his condition, he yet did not employ the personal property which ensued from his own and his wife's thrift, in purchasing his liberty, and elevating himself and family into the higher class of men of colour. His reasons for remaining a slave are not recorded. He may have felt no attractions towards a class whose superiority was more nominal than real. He may have resolved to remain in a class whose emancipation he hoped some day to achieve.

The virtues of his character procured for Toussaint universal respect. He was esteemed and loved even by the free blacks. The great planters held him in consideration. His intellectual faculties ripened under the effects of his intercourse with free and white men. As he grew in mind and became large of heart, he more and more was puzzled and distressed with the institution of slavery; he could in no way understand how the hue of the skin should put so great a social and personal distance between men whom God, he saw, had made essentially the same, and whom he knew to be useful if not indispensable to each other. Naturally he asked himself what others had thought and said of slavery. He had heard passages recited from Raynal.* * Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Etablissemens et du Commerce des Européens dans les Deux Indes, par G. T. Raynal. Geneva; 1780.He procured the work. And now he found how much is involved in the simple art of reading. Toussaint could read,— Toussaint did read. He read passages similar to what follows, and he became the vindicator of negro freedom:—

“Scarcely had domestic liberty revived in Europe, when it was entombed in America. The Spaniard, whom the waves first threw on the shores of the New World, believed himself under no obligation to its inhabitants, for they had not his colour, or his customs, or his religion. He saw in them only his instruments, and he loaded them with chains. Those feeble men, unused to toil, soon perished from the vapours of the mines, and other occupations almost as baneful. Then arose a demand for slaves from Africa. Their numbers increased in proportion as cultivation extended. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the English, the French, the Danes—all nations, whether free or in serfdom, remorselessly sought an augmentation of fortune in the sweat, in the blood, in the despair of these poor wretches;—what a frightful system!

“Liberty is everyone's own property. There are three kinds of liberty—natural liberty, civil liberty, political liberty; that is to say, the liberty of the man, the liberty of the citizen, and the liberty of the community. Natural liberty is the right, which nature has given to every one to dispose of himself according. to his own will. Civil liberty is the right which society ought to guarantee to every citizen to do all that is not contrary to the laws. Political liberty is the condition of a people which has not alienated its own sovereignty, and which makes its own laws, or which is in part associated in its legislation.

“The first of these liberties is, next to reason, the distinctive characteristic of man. We subdue and enchain the brute, because it has no notion of justice or injustice—no idea of greatness and degradation. But in me liberty is the principle of my

THE direful efficiency with which the negroes had devastated the country, indicated the presence among them of a skill superior to any they could possess. That skill was supplied by mulattoes, who organized the destroying bands and directed their movements. The “bastard and degenerate” race thus struck a deadly blow at their criminal parents.

During the progress of these furious excesses, a new general assembly of planters opened its sessions, under the title of “Colonial Assembly.” Its first act was an act of rebellion. Refusing to apply to France for aid, and having taken measures of self-defence, it sought protection from England. These were the terms it employed in a letter addressed to the governor of Jamaica:—

Without awaiting a reply, the General Assembly adopted the round English hat as the uniform of its troops, and substituted the black cockade for the French national colours.

AFTER the conquest of Dondon, Toussaint rushed on Marmelade, which was commanded by Vernet, a mulatto of a feeble and distrustful mind, Having under his orders a legion composed of negroes recently liberated, as well disciplined as the battalions of Toussaint, he, in his timidity, importuned the commission to send him succours. On the 20th of July, 1795, Polverel wrote him these lines: “We do not think you a traitor, but you show not the courage of a republican; if you do not feel strength enough to die rather than yield, say so frankly; we can easily find citizens who make no account of death, when the honour of their country is at stake.”

On the morning of the 27th, Toussaint having formed connexions in the place, made an attack on Marmelade. By the evening, opposition was overcome. Vernet, its commander, joined his fortunes with those of Toussaint, whose niece he afterwards married, and rising to the rank of general, died under the reign of the Haytian king Christophe. Meanwhile the Lieutenant-Colonel Desfournaux was advancing from Port-au-Prince against Saint Michel, in the hope of effecting a division in favour of the French civil authority. The republican troops suffered a complete defeat. Desfournaux himself received several wounds.

Encouraged by the victory, Toussaint advanced and captured Ennery. Thence he wrote to the inhabitants of Gonaïves, lying on the western shore, to induce them to surrender. A rising en masse was attempted, and failed. The heads of the population hastened to take flight by sea.

But Toussaint had not been able sufficiently to protect his rear. Hearing that Chanlatte was advancing from Plaisance against him, he judged it prudent to retreat. Driven back to Marmelade, he employed himself in efforts to abate the evils of the war. Recalling the planters who had taken refuge in the Spanish territories, he restored to them the possession of their estates, and so prevented the destitution which the conflict threatened to produce.

These varieties of success brought no settlement. If the commissioners gained an advantage here, a defeat there countervailed its effect. Once more would they try an appeal to the love of liberty. Accordingly Sonthonax proclaimed at the Cape universal freedom. Polverel repeated the proclamation at Port-au-Prince. Symbolic ceremonies were celebrated on these occasions, which were repeated in various places in which the authority of the commission still prevailed. The consequent enthusiasm was not without some effect. But Toussaint was not easy to be deceived. The destinies of the republic were, he knew, uncertain. The faith of its representatives in Hayti was worse than doubtful. The colonists would be neither gained nor overcome by an understanding with the civil commissioners. He had, therefore, no course before him, but to continue faithful to the king of Spain. His actual position was the only position he could hold consistently with his hope of ever achieving the independence of his caste. For the complications of the contest he was not answerable. If, therefore, he now had to defend the cause of the blacks against blacks themselves, he had no option but to submit to the painful necessity.

Never, perhaps, did a conflict present more heterogeneous combinations, or more regrettable collisions. The white republicans of France were arrayed against the white colonists of Hayti, whom they were sent to succour. The black man's hand was raised against his brother. The mulatto, enemy and friend of both, was by both distrusted and destroyed. Constituted authorities were in hostility. Bands of injured men seeking redress assailed each other. Spanish royalty fostered colonial insurrection. The forces of the country were exhausted in the mutual and ever-recurring strife. Without unity, and without result, the war raged on every side, uniform only in the universal ravages which it inflicted.

This ruinous complication was to be yet more complicated. Discord threw on the wasted shores of Hayti another brand.

We have already seen the planters make overtures to England. In their dissatisfaction with France, they renewed their application. The Court of St. James instructed Williamson, governor of Jamaica, to lend the required assistance. In this appeal, the proprietors of La Grande Anse sent to the governor a treaty, which was accepted. Among the points agreed on was that the island should pass into the hands of Britain, and that its representative should have full power to regulate and govern the island with a view to its restoration to tranquillity. From the tenour of this article, and from the express words of others, the object of the colonists was to turn the power of Great Britain to account, in order to effect that in which they themselves had failed—the humiliation of the mulattoes, and the subjugation of the blacks. With a view to the occupation of Hayti, Governor Williams, in September, 1793, sent an armed force under Colonel Whitelocke, which disembarked at Jéremie, on the 9th of the month, and on the 22nd, the harbour of Saint Nicholas was put into the possession of the English, who, in consequence, held two important positions in Hayti, the latter at the extremity of the northern, the other near the extremity of the southern tongue of its western end. While the military chiefs of the mulattoes, stood aloof, many of the men of colour, not being soldiers, threw themselves into the arms of the British; and Saint Marc, Léogane, Le Grand Goave, and many towns of the south, adopted the conditions of La Grande Anse.

While little more than the Cape and Port-au-Prince remained in the power of the commissioners, an English fleet anchored in the harbour of the last-mentioned city, and demanded its surrender. This armament received an increase shortly afterwards. As usual, dissension and treason were at work among the forces of the authorities. With their aid, the English effected a landing, and took up a position. The commissioners fled to Jacmel. There they learned that a decree had been passed against them by the national convention in Paris. They submitted, and were received as prisoners on board L'Espérance. During the interval, Port-au-Prince became the scene of new horrors. The emigrant Bérenger, at the head of a legion, took possession of the town, and seizing Fort-Joseph, where the whites had taken refuge who could not find room on board the vessels in the harbour, he caused them to come forth one by one, and, as they appeared, he threw them headlong from the rampart into the fosse, saying, “Republican, leap down the Tarpeian rock.” Thus perished two-and-thirty persons, and but for the orders of the English general, not one would have been spared.

England had not invaded the French part of Hayti without having an understanding with Spain. By the convention between the two parties, it was agreed on that England should establish its protection over the west and the south, and that Spain should extend its dominion from the east to the extremity of the north. Accordingly, while the English invaded the west and the south, the Spanish invited the creoles of the north, who had left the colony, to return and take possession of their properties. On the faith of the promises made to them, two hundred colonists quitted the United States, and entered their homes at Fort Dauphin. Shortly after, Jean François, at the head of a body of negroes, encamped under the walls of that place. Resistance was not offered, in the persuasion that they came only to second the operations of the Spaniards. The next day, after the celebration of mass, those blacks mingled with Spaniards, having formed themselves into bands, traversed the streets, and slaughtered every Frenchman they met with, as “enemies of the saints and of kings,”—to use the words by which they were encouraged to the butchery by the priests. The massacre was general; only fourteen persons escaped.

Meanwhile Rigaud, aided by Pétion and other mulatto chiefs, attacked the English, and, taking from them Léogane and Tiburon, blockaded them in La Grande Anse. Finding the enemy formidable, Whitelocke endeavoured to bribe Rigaud and Laveaux, then provisional governor of the colony, into acquiescence, if not submission. The former simply rejected the offer; the latter replied, “Your being my enemy does not give you the right to put on me a personal insult; as an individual I demand satisfaction for the injury you have done me.” Laveaux, believing the Cape indefensible, took up his position at Port-de-Paix, which he fortified, and under its walls braved all the efforts of the English; while they, on their side, occupying the harbour of Saint Nicholas, commanded all the approaches to the city by sea.

The Spaniards, masters of nearly all the north, pressed Port-de-Paix by land, and cut off the supplies of provisions, so that the place underwent the privations of a siege. “For more than six months,” wrote Laveaux, under date May 24th, “we have been reduced to six ounces of bread a day, officers as well as men; but from the 13th of this month, we have none whatever, the sick only excepted. If we had powder, we should have been consoled; our misery is truly great; officers and soldiers experience the greatest privations. We have in our magazines neither shoes, nor shirts, nor clothes, nor soap, nor tobacco. The majority of the soldiers mount guard barefooted, like the Africans. We have not even a flint to give the men. Notwithstanding, be assured that we will never surrender, if indeed, we shall ever capitulate; be assured, too, that after us the enemy will not find the slightest trace of Port-de-Paix. Sooner than be made prisoners, when the balls shall have destroyed everything here, and we have no longer anything to defend, we will retire, and flying from mountain to mountain, we will fight incessantly until aid comes from France.”

Bravery and determination worthy of a better cause! The hope of aid from France proved chimerical, yet the notion helped to keep the soldiers in the line of duty. Relief, indeed, came to them, but it was from an unexpected quarter.

Miserably was this unfortunate island torn asunder by Spaniards, French, English, mulattoes, and the blacks; by monarchists, by republicans, by sceptics, by Romanists, by false friends and true friends of negro emancipation. A lamentable illustration of the diversity of these rival interests was presented at Saint Marc. The same day three flags balanced and negatived each other under the influence of political breezes. Four cockades symbolized four different sets of opinions: here were whites who wore the black cockade; there other whites who wore the white cockade; while the mulattoes wore the red cockade; and some soldiers wore the tri-coloured cockade.

About this time may be dated the final change which the name of Toussaint underwent by receiving the addition of L'Ouverture. L'Ouverture is a French word which signifies the opening. The surname is said to have been given as indicative of the opening which Toussaint had made for himself in the ranks and the possessions of the enemy. If this was its origin, the name is appropriate. Though not always successful, he rushed on his foes with an impetus which mowed down opposition. With poetic licence, Lamartine, in his drama, makes the designation—derived, according to him, from L'Aurore, Day-break—to have been given to Toussaint by a monk, who thus intimated to him that he was to be the morning-star of a new era in Hayti.

A third explanation has been given. According to Pamphile de Lacroix,** ** “Mémoires de Saint Dominique,” vol. i. p. 303. Toussaint assumed the epithet, in order to announce to his people that he was about to open the door to them of a better future. In this view his name became a token of his object. That object he was too prudent to make known in the early period of his efforts. Now, however, might he make the announcement without serious risk. The event justified his conduct. That event would be aided forward by the name. The opening was before the negroes. Whenever they saw Toussaint, they were reminded of the opening; whenever they pronounced his name, they were encouraged to advance toward the opening. There was the door; they had only to be bold and enter in to the desired temple of freedom.

Toussaint L'Ouverture had returned to his mountain stronghold, Marmalade, where he fixed his head-quarters. From that place as a centre, he surveyed the whole island, which to a great extent he now held under his domination. Already the shepherd-boy had become a potentate. It was a time not only for repose, but for the endearments of home. From the time of his entering the service of Spain, he had removed his wife from the theatre of war. He himself conducted her to the mountain fastness of St. Miguel; and for seven months he had not been able to pay her a visit. Kind-hearted as he was, how must he have been moved, when now, after unexpected triumphs, he found his wife and children in safety. His entrance into the place was an ovation. The commander, in a truly Spanish fashion, ordered, among other tokens of rejoicing, bullfights, in honour of the victor. Toussaint L'Ouverture had gained the esteem as well as the confidence of his Spanish masters. Impressed with his respect for religion, as well as the general probity of his character, the Marquis Hermona, under whose orders he was, exclaimed, on seeing him take the communion: —“No, God cannot, in this lower world, visit a purer soul.” Thus esteemed by the Spaniards, feared by the English, dreaded by the French, hated by the planters, and reverenced by the negroes, Toussaint L'Ouverture felt that a crisis had come in his public life, which required the calmest consideration and the soundest judgment. His achievements, his personal influence, and the condition of the conflicting parties, combined to show him the opening door, if only he had wisdom and strength to take the right path. What was that path? The colonists were all but deprived of power for harm. The mulattoes had no organization. The English held only a point or two of the country. From the colonists and the men of colour little, very little, was to be feared or hoped. The negroes had learnt the secret of their power. This result, if no other satisfactory result, had ensued from the conflict. On them might Toussaint L'Ouverture now place great reliance. If they were not already good soldiers, they had performed great things, and gave promise of soon being able both to deserve and achieve independence. But was their emancipation to be gained through Spain? Spain was powerful in Hayti; was its power likely to conduce to the opening? On the contrary, Spain was opposed to emancipation. Her power, then, was power adverse to the great object of Toussaint L'Ouverture's life. What did fidelity to that object demand? Before the question could be answered, another element of thought had to be weighed. France in Hayti was in a miserable condition. Should she be crushed? If she was crushed, the alternative lay between the slave-dominion of England and the slave-dominion of Spain. But though France was depressed, could she be crushed? Her arms were triumphant in Europe, and a strong effort to rescue her favourite colony might reasonably be expected. The present depression was such as to call for gratitude towards any effectual helper. The possible continuance of the depression gave assurance of the probability that, even in opposition to France, still more in conjunction with France, the independence of the negroes—if not the independence of the island—might be achieved. Why, then, not seek “the opening” in union with France? The disposition implied in the question was confirmed by a recent decree of the French legislature (Feb. 4, 1794) which, declaring Hayti an integral part of France, confirmed and proclaimed the freedom of all the slaves. This was a very grave act; an act of the mother country, not a mere device of a local commissioner; this was a deliberate and solemn recognition of the very object of Toussaint's life, not a trick in war for the very purpose of frustrating that object. And this step was taken when, to some extent, the days of French republican weakness had given place to days of strength, and when the name of republican France had begun to become a terror in the world. Hence, many things pointed to a coalition with France—her weakness, her power, her liberality. Alliance, too, with her seemed the natural course. Independence by her, with her, and eventually —if it might be—without her, involved the introduction of no foreign element into the Haytian world; no new language, no strange customs and unacceptable manners. A French colony would still remain essentially French. Old usages would remain in honour; old observances would not be trampled on; old associations would not be disregarded or broken up. Especially would religion remain uninjured and unchanged. Hayti was a Catholic island, and France was a Catholic country. Toussaint L'Ouverture, too, was a sincere Catholic. Religious considerations, always powerful with him, seem to have received special attention, and had special weight in this juncture. The Abbé de la Haie was his adviser. The same clergyman went between him and Laveaux. At length, a distinct offer was made by the French commander. Toussaint L'Ouverture accepted the opening.

In this important step, he was doubtless influenced by a consideration derived from his actual position. He was surrounded by violent men. He was, in some sort, under the control of violent men. Certainly, he was intimately allied with men of colour by whom, or with whom, negro emancipation could not be wrought out. Of these facts he, about this time, was made painfully aware. His superior in command, Jean François, quarrelled with Biassou. Over the latter, Toussaint, as the former knew, possessed great influence. Choosing to implicate Toussaint in the quarrel, Jean François committed him to prison. By Biassou, he was delivered. The hazard had been great. He who could incarcerate might slay. A second peril of the kind was not to be thought of; therefore, the great, the final step must be taken. Having adopted precautions for the safety of his family, he made his military arrangements with skill, and carried them into effect with success. He then proclaimed universal liberty in all the districts under his influence. On the 4th of May, he pulled down the Spanish and hoisted the French flag wherever he was in power. Fright and confusion prevailed among the Spaniards. Joy agitated the bosoms of the negroes. Nearly all the north returned to their allegiance to France.

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE'S accession to the cause of France was followed by brilliant exploits. Rigaud suddenly fell on Léogane, which had been surrendered to the English, and with a very inconsiderable loss carried the place, though it had been strongly fortified. Among the booty were twenty thousand pounds of powder, eight of which he sent to Laveaux, who, with his fellow-combatants in Port-de-Paix, hailed the capture of Léogane with shouts of delight.

Toussaint now came into collision with Jean François, his former commander. He took from that Spanish ally all his posts, and drove him westward into La Montaigne Noire. Hastening into the valley of the Artibonite, Toussaint attacked the English, and, capturing several towns, fell on Saint Marc, the seat of the English power. Sitting down to besiege the city, he got possession of two important posts. In one of these, Morne-Diamant, he raised a battery which riddled the place. Then, while aiding the men to mount a gun, he crushed his left hand. He was compelled to resign the conduct of the attack to others. The consequence was injurious. Besides, his forces were insufficiently provided with ammunition. He was forced to retire. This partial failure occasioned perfidy in some of his forces, to which he himself nearly fell a victim. Thus, while he had to maintain an open warfare against Spain and England, he had also to guard against the treachery which those powers did not disdain to set in motion among his own adherents.

Retiring, as was his custom, to the mountain fastnesses, of which Marmelade may be considered as the centre, he collected forces, and on the 9th of October, 1794, quitted that place at the head of nearly five thousand men, and after some minor successes, carried San Miguel by storm.

This exploit raised him high in the estimation of the French commanders. Laveaux and Rigaud united in their eulogies of the skill and prowess he had manifested. An interview took place between Laveaux and Toussaint at Dondon. This was the first time they had seen each other. Toussaint presented to the general-in-chief his principal officers; Dessalines, commander of San Miguel, Duménil, commander of Plaisance, Desrouleaux, Clerveaux, Maurepas, &c., commanders of battalions.

Toussaint L'Ouverture had already become a great power. Very considerable influence did he exert in this conference of French authorities.

Raised to this eminence, and now seeing “the opening” in clear outline before him, Toussaint was indefatigable. Such was the rapidity of his movements, and at so many different places was he seen near the same moment, that he seemed, especially in the eyes of the ignorant negroes, as if he was superior to time and space. Specially was he found at every post of imminent danger. His energy and his prowess made him the idol of his troops. They also caused him to be dreaded by his enemies. He was no longer a leader of insurgents, but a commander of an army. He gave over marauding expeditions to lay out and conduct a campaign.

His immediate aim was to drive the English out of the island, and for that purpose, to make himself master of the port of Saint Marc. Coming down from the mountains with this view, he found that the English commander, Brisbane, had advanced into the interior of the valley of the Artibonite, and, taking Les Vérettes, had compelled his troops to retire. One small position alone held out against Brisbane. Toussaint determined to make one of those efforts which he so well knew how to direct, and by which he sometimes effected at a blow very great results. Starting forward in the night early in December, with a band of three hundred cavalry, he by ambuscade and sudden attack, drove the enemy back in disgrace.

HAVING reached the commanding position which he held, Toussaint L'Ouverture, with a true patriotism and a wise benevolence, applied himself to the difficult task of healing the wounds of his country. The first task was to induce the planters to resume possession of their estates, and re-commence the tillage of the soil. This he effected in part by persuasion, in part by gentle compulsion; numerous detachments of infantry, traversing the cities, collected together the scattered owners and conducted them to the plantations. The conduct of the troops employed in the service was as worthy of notice as the obedience of the agriculturists; for, observing the strictest discipline, they showed the greatest respect to property, and conducted themselves towards all with becoming moderation and mildness. The control over these rude natures which this temperance implied, was the result of the discipline instituted by Toussaint, and of the love and the fear which his name inspired. Among his signal triumphs this was, perhaps, the most signal. Not by blacks only, but by whites, was this extraordinary man obeyed. Obedience secured Toussaint's protection. Regardless of the colour of the skin, he received with favour, and treated with confidence, and promoted with readiness, all whom he had valid reasons for believing sincerely bent on advancing the public good. Disdaining to govern by the rivalry of classes, he aimed to serve the whole, by the means and with the aid of each. Emigrant or creole, black or white, men were treated by him as men; being placed in the posts for which they were fitted, whether military or civil. If there was a difference in his conduct towards dependents, that difference was not in favour of white men. The injured, he rightly judged, had the first claim to his attention. Generally, however, his administration was impartial, severely impartial.

It scarcely need be added that he grew in universal estimation. Respected by men in general, his influence became immense, and even the fear or distrust which was secretly nourished against him by some, was an acknowledgment of his power. Under Toussaint's benign sway, parties began to melt away, and heart-burnings to cease. An unqualified amnesty, which he proclaimed, tranquillized men's minds, and reconciled them to the existing state of things.

Nor did the victorious general forget the All-powerful Arm to which he knew that he owed his triumph, and by whose aid only, he was equally assured, he could finish the work he had begun and so far accomplished.

But the governor disapproved of L'Ouverture's policy. Whether from a difference of view, or from suspecting Toussaint of ambitious designs, Hédouville, though a professed Republican, characterized his administration as “too mild and too full of results.” Never having behaved towards the negro captain with cordiality, he now conveyed to Toussaint's ears words of open complaint and covert blame. Toussaint was not to be turned from a course which he had deliberately adopted, and found to be most beneficial. Afraid lest Hédouville's power would interrupt that course, or abate its good, he issued proclamations to his troops—his chief basis of reliance—in order to confirm them in their obedience by the strongest of ties, namely, the religious ties to which their susceptible and impulsive natures made them peculiarly sensible. “This,” said he, “is the path which we must all follow, in order to draw down upon us the blessing of the Lord. I hope you will never depart from it, and that you will punctually execute what follows:—

“The heads of regiments are required to see that the troops join in prayer morning and evening, as far as the service will permit.

“At the earliest review, the Generals Commanding-in-chief, will cause high mass to be celebrated and a Te Deum to be sung in all the places of their several districts, as an expression of gratitude to Heaven for having vouchsafed to direct our last campaigns; for having caused the evacuation of the enemy to take place without effusion of blood; for having protected the return amongst us of many thousand men of every colour, who till then had been lost; and, finally, for having restored to the labours of agriculture more than twenty thousand hands. The Te Deum will be announced by a salvo of twenty-two pieces of cannon.”

Under the effects of words so religious and so just, the credit of Hédouville was greatly lessened; in proportion as L'Ouverture gained ascendancy, he sank, until he retained among his supporters only those who were immediately around him, such as his officials, Frenchmen who were foreigners in the colony, and others who, from personal connexions with the mother country, desired to maintain its power in the hands of its agents.

The contrast was made greater by the diverse course pursued by the two in regard to the cultivators of the soil. While Hédouville unconditionally declared all the blacks free, Toussaint wisely prefixed to their actual freedom a kind of apprenticeship for five years, on condition of their receiving one-fourth of the produce, out of which the masters were to defray the cost of their subsistence. The plan of the governor, speciously designed to catch the popular breeze, would have issued in universal disorder. Instead of immediate emancipation, always pregnant with present and future disasters, Toussaint interposed a period of preparation, and in so doing, saved the property of the masters, as well as promoted the interests of the servants. So wise and moderate a use of his triumph and his power probably saved Hayti from the terrors of a universal convulsion, and certainly raised him to a high position in the respect of all impartial and judicious men.

Hédouville, aware to what an extent he had lost the public confidence, took measures for provoking a movement contrary to Toussaint among the men of colour. Rigaud he accordingly invited to the seat of government. As a cover, he invited Toussaint also to take part in the conference. But the negro chief was as wary as he was bold; and he may have heard that some time previously officers of Hédouville's staff had offered to seize his person, if only their master would put four brave soldiers at their disposal.

Remaining at Port-au-Prince, Toussaint was informed that Rigaud was on his way to the Cape. The commander of that place, and several black officers, advised Toussaint to intercept and apprehend Rigaud. “I could,” he replied, “easily do so; but God forbid. I have need of Rigaud. He is violent. I want him for carrying on war; and that war is necessary to me. The mulatto caste is superior to my own. If I take Rigaud from them, they would perhaps find another superior to him. I know Rigaud; he gives up the bridle when he gallops; he shows his arm when he strikes. For me, I gallop also; but I know where to stop; and when I strike, I am felt, not seen. M. Rigaud can conduct insurrections only by blood and massacres; I know how to put the people in movement; but when I appear, all must be tranquil.”

A general feeling of uneasiness spread abroad. Fear began to prevail. A counter-revolution seemed at hand. The blacks were uneasy, especially those who had compromised themselves in taking part with the English. The mulattoes were regarded with alarm. In Fort-Saint-Dauphin, a regiment ran to arms, declaring that the whites wished to restore slavery. A combat took place between the black troops and the white troops. The former being beaten, spread over the open country, which they raised on all sides. Then, once more, conflagration committed its ravages. Many unfortunate whites, taken by surprise on their estates, were slaughtered. The insurgents marched to the Cape. Toussaint hastened to the seat of the insurrection. The blacks were raging as in former days. Suddenly their chief appeared, and all was peaceful. Undertaking to be the exponent of their griefs, he led them to Cape City. The moment he arrived there, the alarm was given by the authorities, who seem to have desired a rencontre. The troops were assembled, but the effort proved nugatory. By little and little, the soldiers deserted their posts when they knew that Toussaint was at hand. Hédouville, failing in his coup d'etat, embarked to return to France. From on board the ship he published a proclamation, in which, being no longer able to profit by the prejudices of colour, he sought his account by appealing to national jealousies, and declared that Toussaint L'Ouverture was sold to the English.

The movement was at an end. The plotter was on his way back to France, and the regenerator of his country found himself in a freer field, and possessed of augmented resources. No less single than pure in his aims, Toussaint L'Ouverture rose in general regard and public confidence, even by the contrarieties which the Governor had thrown in his way. By the failure of the recent plot, too, the mulatto interest, considered as hostile to the interest of other classes, received a heavy blow.

As soon as General Hédouville had set sail, the blacks were not only tranquil, but obedient to the eye and the finger of their chief. Every one silently resumed his habitudes. The most perfect calm succeeded the most raging tempest. A Te Deum was chanted, and the name of Toussaint L'Ouverture was mingled with the Hallowed Name in the uttered gratitude of thousands. Toussaint was not insensible to the homage, and he desired the complete accomplishment of his mission. But he had seen the edifice he had so carefully and painfully raised, put in danger with only too much facility. The mulatto party, though weakened, were still powerful. At their head was Rigaud, who had not shown himself averse to the designs of his caste. Toussaint dreaded a collision. Possibly he himself was a hindrance to a peaceful and permanent settlement. Entertaining no merely personal objects, he gave utterance to a desire to be relieved of his weighty responsibilities. At a moment when, by a bold stroke, he might have set up a throne, and perhaps established a dynasty, he asked for his dismissal. The word called forth a universal remonstrance. The civil and the military authorities, the white, black, and brown inhabitants, the proprietors and the labourers, all combined in laying before him formal addresses, in which they entreated him to remain, to use their own terms, “their father and their benefactor.”

But there was a court of appeal. Before that tribunal Hédouville would appear with singular advantage. Toussaint knew the disparity of his means for obtaining a fair hearing, but he resolved to employ such as were at his command. Accordingly, he sent Colonel Vincent, one of his secretaries, to explain and justify his conduct before the French Government, then in the hands of the Directory. Colonel Vincent was the bearer of a letter, of which the following contains the principal passages:—

“Toussaint L'Ouverture, General-in-Chief of the army of Saint Domingo, to the Directory of the Republic:

“CITIZEN DIRECTORS,—When in my last dispatches I determined to request my dismissal, I did so because, after having collected all the instances of opposition to the principles which the Constitution has established, which your wisdom has maintained, which your energy has defended,—all the instances of opposition, I say, manifested in conduct held by the agent Hédouville during the short space of time which he governed this colony,—foresaw the unhappy event which for an instant disturbed the public tranquillity I had had so much trouble to establish; and I did go after having calculated the consequences of the distance at which he held himself from me, and of which he gave public proofs on several occasions, fearing that my deposition, which he meditated, would be the reward of my long services, of my fidelity, and of my devotedness.

“The incident at Fort-Dauphin realized my apprehensions as to the convulsion for which preparations were made, and the proclamation which the agent put forth at the moment of his departure has justified my fears regarding the fate he intended for me.

“The most outrageous injury which can be done to a man of honour crowns the vexations which he has made me undergo. By this perfidious act he causes a vast number of Frenchmen to quit these lands who had congratulated themselves on their happiness here, and who, faithful to their country, were compelled to sacrifice their interests, rather than become accomplices in the crime of independence of which I was regarded as guilty; he carries with him, especially, the principal authorities, that (as he said on leaving) they may be the irrefragable proof of my duplicity, of my perfidy.

“Doubtless the first feeling of the Directory, whom I respect, on seeing them unanimously bear witness against me, will be to invoke vengeance on my head; that of the French people, whom I love, to devote me to execration; and that of the enemies of the blacks, whom I despise, to cry out for slavery; but when it shall be known that at the time which I was accused of wishing to sunder this island from France, my benefactress, I repeated the oath of fidelity to her, I take pleasure in believing that the government I own, and my fellow- citizens, will render me the justice I merit, and that the enemies of my brethren will be reduced to silence.

“The Agent, in reality, surrounded himself only with persons in the colony sunk in public opinion, ambitious and intriguing, who caress all the factions which have torn this unfortunate country. A band of young men, of no character and no principles, who came with him, then threw away the mask, and manifested a spirit both anti-national and insulting to me.

“The labourers who began to taste the sweets of repose in the midst of security, were surprised at the impure sounds which struck their ear, and wounded their heart. I became the depository of their griefs, and I composed their minds by assuring them of the good intentions of the agent of a benevolent government; but they soon accused me myself of partiality, having become certain that even at the table of the General Agent they were denounced as unworthy of the liberty they enjoy, and which they have derived from the equity of France.

“Often did the Agent reproach me with having received emigrants, with violating the constitution, with 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 that 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 towards 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 towards the public interests, that I employed for the advantage of the republic, 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 labourers 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 councils 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 endeavoured 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 rumours. 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 re-establishment 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 labourers had become general, that all the plain was in arms, and threatened Cape Town 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 colour 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 Saint 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 re-established the public tranquillity, I sent to the Commissioner Roume—your delegate in what was formerly the Spanish part of this island—to intreat 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.

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 towards the proprietors, whereas the latter had determined to pursue his course of administering equal justice to men of all colours, 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 afterwards. 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 colour 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 colour 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 colour gaining the upper hand, threw into prison, at Jéremie, thirty of their prisoners, consisting of one colonist and nine-and-twenty blacks. Then was re-enacted the tragedy of the Black Hole in Calcutta. The prisoners perished from bad air. Premeditation was imputed to the mulattoes; of culpable inconsideration 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 north-west as Saint-Nicholas, which he brought back to its duty. The men of colour 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 colour, 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 colour. The fact was illustrated in this terrible conflict. With such bitterness and ferocity did it rage, 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 stratagems. 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 labourers 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 standstill, 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 labourers, 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 harbour 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 vigour. Post after post was taken. Meanwhile, Rigaud neither came up to aid, nor operated a diversion. Then Petion, apprized 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 recognised 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 colours. 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:—

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.

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 slave-trade 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 Havannah—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 tenour of his public life, occassioned 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 favour 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 despatched 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 honour, 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 favourable 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 towards 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 in resources, your fellow-citizens, composing the southern army, possess courage and honour, 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 towards 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 to 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 colours. 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 recognised 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 colour, 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 favour of all who had taken part in the war, not even Rigaud excepted. The deputies reached Cayes, where Rigaud held his head-quarters. That 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 despatch 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 colour 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 tenour. 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.*

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 developement 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 recognised 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 despatches 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. Beside, 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 afterwards 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 towards 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 ascendancy 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 comparison, 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).”