no ordinary description, with a fierce enemy dogging his path, and a subtle ally striving to undermine his authority, he did not neglect the interior economy of the island, but established agrarian regulations which secured the well-doing of his superior officers.

Satisfied, at length, that nothing save force could dislodge the "Lord Protector," whom he had himself assisted to place on his perilous eminence, and anxious to consolidate his tottering authority in the West Indian Archipelago, the First Consul, early in the December of 1801, fitted out an expedition against Saint Domingo, under the command of his brother-in-law, General Le Clerc, with whom was associated Admiral Villaret Joyeuse, as naval commander. The details given by the Baron de Lacroix of the extraordinary want of judgment displayed by the First Consul and his advisers on the subject of this expedition, will account for the fact of their approach being known to the Haytian authorities long before the fleet appeared off the island, and when it was most essential to the success of the enterprise that all should be accomplished alike with secresy and dispatch.

"Never did any undertaking display greater naval strength, under such defective management; the rendezvous at sea appeared to have been given only to retard and to betray the expedition.

"In the first place the squadrons which left the different seaports received an order to meet in the Gulf of Gascony, where it was easy to run foul of each other.

"The second rendezvous was at the Canary Islands, too far south of their direct course.

"Ultimately, the third was at Cape Sumana, at the head of the Island of St. Domingo, where the easterly winds are strong and prevalent; and where, in order not to be driven to the westward, it is necessary to wage constant warfare with the wind, the currents, and the waves. Few vessels are able to resist their combined violence.

"The time which the squadrons lost in looking for and waiting for each other, caused the general muster at Cape Sumana to occupy several weeks.

"The moral effect of a sudden appearance was lost; while, if all the squadrons had rendezvoused at one of the Windward Islands, (independently of the advantage of showing our flag in great numbers in the Archipelago of the Antilles,) it would have been easy, having the wind, and in putting embargos, to drop down suddenly on Saint Domingo, and to profit by the advantages of surprise and combination. "The very contrary was done; the crisis had time to ferment." * Toussaint, who galloped over to the Cape to watch the motions of the advancing fleet, was for a time utterly discouraged and

* Révolution de St. Domingue, tome II. pp. 62-3.

hopeless, but he soon rallied. Its appearance at sea was formidable; but, like a small kernel in a monstrous nut, the number of troops brought by the fifty-four vessels and frigates, which made so gallant a show as they neared the island, amounted to no more than 10,500 men; to whom the Haytian generals could oppose a force of 20,650; and when, early in February, Cape François, then under the orders of Christophe, was summoned, he refused, by the orders of his chief, to receive the French armament; and when he reluctantly became convinced of the utter futility of further resistance, fired the city by throwing a brand into his own house, and marched out, leaving only a waste of smoking ruins to the invaders.

Fort Dauphin and Port-au-Prince, however, soon fell into the hands of the French general; upon which an attempt was made to induce Toussaint to abandon the cause to which he had devoted himself. The details of the interview in which his children, who, having been educated in the French capital, had naturally adopted the views and feelings of their Gallic preceptors, were made the principal agents, were eminently affecting; but the effort of Le Clerc served only to acerate the spirit of the stern chief, without having power to shake his resolution.

sons.

"There is one circumstance in his life which places his character in an interesting point of view, and cannot fail to excite our admirationI mean the manner in which he conducted himself, when Le Clerc proposed to him, either to abandon the cause of liberty or to lose his two The latter were brought by Le Clerc from France, where they had been sent for their education; and the proposal was made by their tutor, when he introduced them to their father on their return. Toussaint embraced them with the utmost tenderness, wept over them, and was for some time in extreme agony, apparently hesitating whether he should yield to his affection as a father, or follow his duty as a patriot. He at length wiped away his tears, delivered his sons to the tutor, saying, Take back my children, since it must be so; I will be faithful to my brethren and my God.' (Vide Hist. of St. Dom. c. VIII. pp. 232 -241.) The youths were brought back to Le Clerc, but what became of them afterwards could never be learnt." *

6

In the west and south the struggle was unremitted. Many lives were sacrificed on both sides; nor was it until after the memorable defence of Crête à Pierrot,† that the three Haytian

* Sketches of Hayti, Harvey, pp. 73-4.

+ Celebrated in Haytian annals for the defence it made against no less than three divisions of General Le Clerc's army. * * * Crête à Pierrot is an insignificant fortification, built by our army on the right bank of the Artibonite, protecting one of the principal passages to the north and east of the group of mountains called Les Mornes de Cahos,' at a distance of rather more than a mile from the

chiefs, Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe, tendered their submission to the French general.

The result of this step was the treacherous arrest of the former on sundry charges of treason, and his expatriation to France, where he perished in the Château de Joux, "crispé par le froid, rongé par ses regrets," according to Lacroix, but sacrificed, as other authorities declare, by more tangible agents.

"On the voyage from Saint Domingo to France he was refused all intercourse with his family; he was confined constantly to his cabin, and the door was guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets. On the arrival of the ship at Brest, no time was lost in hurrying him on shore. On the deck only was he permitted to have an interview with his wife and children, whom he was to meet no more in this life. He was conveyed in a close carriage, and under a strong escort of cavalry, to the Castle of Joux, in Normandy, where he was committed to the strictest confinement, with a single negro attendant.

"From the Castle of Joux, Toussaint, at the approach of winter, was removed to Besançon, and there immured in a cold, damp, and gloomy dungeon, like one of the worst criminals. This dungeon may be regarded as his sepulchre. Let the reader imagine the horrors of such a prison to one who had been born and lived near threescore years in a West Indian climate, where warmth and air are never wanting, even in jails, and where the beams of the sun are only too bright and continual. It has been confidently asserted by respectable authority, that the floor of the dungeon was covered with water. In this deplorable condition, without any comfort, or alleviation of his sufferings, he lingered through the winter, and died in the spring of the following year."

*

The injudicious measures of Le Clerc ere long excited towards him the disgust of every class of the colonists, from the military officers to the labouring agriculturists. One after the other the native chiefs fell from him; and the yellow fever, of which he ultimately became the victim, just spared him sufficiently long to render him cognizant of the failure of all his schemes. He was succeeded in his command by General Rochambert, (subsequently

village of Petite Rivière, from which the ascent is very gradual, terminating in an elevation which, judging by the eye, cannot much exceed 350 feet. One side next to the river is very precipitous; while from the north and south the approaches, although difficult, are covered with a considerable quantity of underwood and some large trees, under cover of which the French made their attacks. After three unsuccessful assaults by the French, in the last of which, according to General Lacroix, who commanded a division there, there were fully 12,000 men, the garrison, consisting of not more than 1000 or 1200, under the command of the chef-de-brigade Lamartinière, cut their way through their assailants, and retired in safety to the black army, with a loss of less than one half of their numbers."-MACKENZIE'S Notes, vol. I. pp. 139-40. * History of Saint Domingo, c. VIII. pp. 270-1.

killed at Leipsic,) to whom a reinforcement of 20,000 men was sent by the French government; and who, emulating Dessalines in his enormous cruelties, finished by alienating the few colonists who still adhered to the French cause.* There can be no doubt but that to the memory of the uncompromising barbarity of this one man may even now be attributed, in no slight degree, the extreme jealousy entertained by the Haytians of all interference or advances on the part of France; a jealousy so deeply rooted and so perseveringly fostered, as to induce them, even at this period of superior enlightenment, to adhere stringently to the 38th Article of their Constitution, which prohibits white men from becoming landed proprietors in the island.

"No white man can marry a Haytian woman, and thereby become entitled to her real or personal estate; and no white man can trade without a special license, renewable yearly with a heavy fine; nor, indeed, generally speaking, can he trade at all without being associated with a Haytian partner. Such restrictions as these tend to exclude capital from the country, to paralyse industry, and to prevent the increased cultivation of the soil. But few Europeans can be found who are willing to subject themselves to the fetters thus imposed upon them. If a merchant of this class, which is sometimes the case, marry a Haytian woman, and buy land, and if he desire to preserve in his own hands the power of disposing of his property during life, or at death, he takes a bond of his wife, or presumed wife, for the full value of the land purchased, and then disposes of it at his pleasure; as the wife or children, who by law would inherit the land, cannot take possession till the created incumbrance has been paid off. By schemes like these the law is evaded as to some of its pernicious consequences; but it still maintains its supremacy in this respect-that no white man can possess a freehold, in his own right, in the soil." I

That the Haytians should consider it necessary to secure themselves against the encroachments of needy adventurers or political agents, none can be surprised. That they should, in remembering that they have already once been "pushed from their stools" by France, deem it probable that she would willingly

* "The road from Petite Anse to the Cape is on the shore, washed by the waters of that awful bay, where, in the time of Le Clerc and Rochambeau, the French army made such a dreadful havoc of their prisoners of war, sending them out heavily ironed in boats, and plunging them into the sea. Many a sumptuous banquet of human flesh have the sharks enjoyed on this coast, and the sight of its waters is constantly recalling the horrors of those dreadful days. Can Europeans reproach Dessalines, Christophe, and their black armies with cruelty? Let them look at the conduct of their own savage military commanders, and see on which side cruelty the most predominates."-CANDLER's Brief Notices of Hayti, p. 39.

+ Art. 38. "No white man, whatever be his nation, shall put his foot on this territory, as master or proprietor."

Candler's Brief Notices of Hayti, p. 108.

seize an opportunity of re-asserting her supremacy over them, is equally easy of comprehension; but that they should rigidly enforce a sweeping rejection of all foreign settlers, is such a monstrous mistake in policy, that it can only be accounted for by the supposition that they are as yet mistrustful of their own powers of self-preservation. The error, meanwhile, is one of fundamental importance. The aboriginal race who peopled the island on its discovery were totally swept away, and the colony repeopled from Africa. Thence arose, as a natural consequence, a paucity of population, which the exterminating civil warfare, that has so long convulsed the country, has not tended to replenish. Unexplored mines of all the precious metals, primeval forests where the stroke of the axe never resounds, noble rivers whose currents run unfreighted and profitless to the ocean, and vast plains teeming with a rank and useless vegetation -all invite human labour and human enterprise-but demand them in vain. Hayti is not sufficiently peopled to avail herself of these magnificent natural advantages; and even the tracts of coffee, cotton, and sugar plantations, which before the revolution were rendered productive, and the source of prosperity to the planters, are now imperfectly cultivated, and in some instances suffered to lie waste from the same depressing cause.

Any one who has attentively considered all the phases of their history, must concede that the Haytians are a shrewd and intelligent people; and yet they, in this instance, wilfully become themselves the stumbling-block to their own political advancement, and their own moral progression. The exercise of a right judgment on this question would surely enable them to decide more rationally; and by selecting only such foreigners as have resided long among them, and whose probity and good faith they have tested, to share the privileges of citizenship and property with themselves, they would be effectually protected against the encroachments of France, while their internal resources would be strengthened and their social importance increased. But to return to the French occupation under Rochambert.

Violence and crime, as already stated, characterized equally the struggle on both sides; until at length the consular army, unable longer to contend against the combined strength of their resolute opponents and the English squadron under Commodore Loring, which, in consequence of the renewal of hostilities between

"The produce of the colony during the first year of Toussaint's administration did not amount to half of what it had been previously to the original commotions; a deficiency which, though it arose in some measure from the ravages of a ten years' war, must be partly ascribed to the great diminution which had, during that period, taken place among the negroes."-History of St. Domingo, p. 203.