CHAPTER III.

Leclerc tries to rule by creating jealousy and division-Ill-treats the men of colour-Disarms the blacks-An insurrection ensues, and gains head, until it wrests from the violent hands of the general nearly all his possessionsLeclerc dies-Bonaparte resolves to send a new army to Saint Domingo.

As the news of the deportation of Toussaint L'Ouverture spread abroad, secret and deep discontent began to prevail, which threatened disturbance, if not disaster. In vain Leclerc tried to prevent these consequences of his own misdeeds, by a slow concealed tyranny. He created division among the black chiefs by insinuating into their violent natures rivalry, jealousy, and hatred; he set the ambition of one in opposition to the moderation of another; now he brought into contrast this man's fidelity with that man's want of fidelity; mingling adroitly together praises and enticements, favours and disgrace, encouraging and rewarding mutual accusations. Special pains did he take to revive the old animosities between the blacks and the men of colour; animosities which in reality were only a consequence of the difference in the servitude to which they were in common subject. As a result of this Machiavellian policy, many officers of black and of mixed blood were persecuted, imprisoned, or banished to a distance. Of this number was Rigaud, next to Toussaint the most renowned of all. He was arrested in the port of Saint Marc, whither he had been sent as if to take a command. In his indignation, he threw his sword into the sea, to prevent its being sullied by traitors. He was sent to France, and curiously enough, was, as we have seen, cast into the prison which held Toussaint L'Ouverture. Lamartinière, who had displayed the virtues of a champion of liberty behind the walls of Crête-a-Pierrot, was massacred in an ambuscade. Thus was manifested the hatred of the colonists against men whom they could not endure to see in the enjoyment of freedom. That hatred was fostered by the Consul, and by his representative Leclerc. Of special consequence did the Captain-general consider the disarming of the blacks; but the

step was one of extreme difficulty. Men, whose passions are excited, and whose future is uncertain, do not easily surrender their arms. Cajolery and mutual distrust were put into action; the result was, that thirty thousand muskets were collected and laid up in the common armoury. But in the midst of the operation, discontent was displayed, menaces were uttered, sedition was fostered, risings took place; the Government was compelled to employ vigour as well as adroitness. Troops were set in movement, blacks who were in subjection were employed against others who were ripe for revolt; some sullenly gave up their arms, others hid them, waiting their opportunity. Ferocious bands were formed, who practised all kinds of atrocities. The disarming succeeded best in the south; in the west it was very partial; the coloured population, distrustful and disquieted, especially since the deportation of Rigaud, betook themselves to the mountains; then most unjust and injudicious severities were exercised; suspicions sufficed for the infliction of death; the scaffolds were loaded with victims of both sexes, and of all ages. Several of the wives of the officers of the seventh colonial brigade were publicly executed. After capturing Belair, Dessalines slaughtered three hundred blacks and men of colour in the vale of the Artibonite, to avenge the death of some European soldiers, massacred within the country under his command. Meanwhile, an impression had been obtaining prevalence that the disarming and other offensive measures were parts of a system intended to issue in the restoration of slavery. Some imprudent colonists, whom experience of evil had not taught anything but revenge, uttered in one of their assemblies the old maxim-"No slavery, no colony." The alarm caused thereby was augmented by news that slavery had been restored in other French dependencies, and that even the slave-trade was resumed. Under the growing fears and distrust, some applied to purchase their freedom. request was refused by their former owners. "We are then," said mothers of families, with tears in their eyes, 66 we are then about to fall back into slavery." To prevent the calamity, the blacks made such preparation as they could. Circumstances were in their favour; a malady which had gone far to destroy

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the army and the fleet; the rainy season, which was at hand, not less baneful to the whites than favourable to the blacks; the asylum of the mountains, where their foes would pursue them almost in vain. Full of fear yet full of courage, they spoke to each other words of exhortation: "Do they expect to find slaves in us? why did they not leave us at large in our forests? Was Africa, our native land, weary of us? Have our rivers been dried up? Did not our flocks, our fields, did not hunting and fishing suffice for our wants? We learnt no other wants but at the price of our liberty; they have deceived us in our simplicity by poisoned gifts. Were not our feet accustomed, unshod, to walk over burning sands; and did not our uncovered heads brave the fires of the torrid zone? Our skin, given by nature to enable us to live near the sun, performed the office of garments fabricated by luxury. Was not the limpid wave of our fountains preferable to the liquors which cause brutal fury? To enjoy the sweet manifestations of friendship, the guileless smile of our children, the caresses of a mother who, during three years, nurtured us with her milk; to trouble neither our own lot nor the lot of others; to pass our life without fear and without desires, as a river of a tranquil and uniform flow-such were the precious advantages of which we have been robbed by our enemies." While thus they inflamed each other by fancy pictures of their ancestral mode of life, they drew a too true and a very painful contrast in adverting to their actual condition. Here a man held forth his arm, mutilated by a barbarous monster; there another pointed to his leg, eaten into by the links of an iron chain; others drew attention to the scars left by the driver's thong; women uncovered their breasts, which showed traces of the branding-iron,-the breasts which had suckled their masters' children. And then, with what pride did they turn to the blessings of freedom! "Heaven, in its pity, has given us a new country in this land of exile, of grief, and of shame; shall it be torn from us?"

Soon the standard of revolt was raised. At first the banner was unfurled by obscure men who occasioned little solicitude. But civil wars are pregnant with great leaders. In the moun

tains of Saint Domingo there were always tribes of untamed Africans, who had thrown off the yoke of slavery. At the head of one of these tribes was Lamour de Rance, an adroit, stern, savage man, half-naked, with epaulettes tied by a cord, for his only token of authority. At home in the mountains, he passed from one to the other with something of the ease of one of their own birds. Toussaint himself had in vain pursued him in those retreats, whose proper inhabitants are wild beasts; that chief acknowledged no other authority than that which nature gave, in no way thinking or caring about monarchy or republicanism. His tender of obedience to the Government had been a matter of mere form. His dress, his manners, his character, his mode of fighting, at the Cape, where he just showed himself, were objects of curiosity and amusement with the French army. A greater insult could not be given than to ask this savage warrior for his arms. Were they not the protectors of his life? He avenged the insult by carrying fire and sword over the Highlands in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince. In the plain of Léogane he reduced to ashes more than a hundred plantations; he carried off the labourers, and inflicted barbarous cruelties on the whites.

The revolt extended. In the north, as well as in the south and the west, it broke out and spread devastation. As reports of these insurrections got abroad at the Cape and Port-auPrince, consternation increased. News was eagerly sought after, though almost always the source of fresh anxiety. Some reported that they had seen on fire the mountains which overhang Portau-Prince; others that Lamour de Rance had reduced to ashes the plantations of Léogane. This day brought intelligence that Sans-Souci was in arms at Vallière; the next that Noël had seized Dondon and Sylla Plaisance. "You have heard that Macaya raises the country around Port-de-Paix ?" "No; but a band of insurgents is spreading terror in the island of Tortue." More lamentable still were the narratives which some had to give how their brothers, their wives, their children, had been massacred with an incredible refinement of cruelty.

The general alarm was exaggerated by the colonists, who, forgetful of the share they had had in causing it, and that but

for them there would have been no conquest of the island, no violation of oaths, no intention of restoring slavery, accused (as is the custom of such men) their destiny, the Government, Heaven, every object but themselves, the real sources of all these evils. 66 'Heaven, then," they said, "has not ceased to persecute us; have we not suffered enough during ten years of exile and misery? Shall we always be driven into flight, or be massacred by our ferocious slaves? Was there ever a similar succession of reverses and misfortunes? Are we not the most unfortunate of men? Our slaves are before our eyes kindling incendiary torches, and twice have we seen our plantations and our towns burned to the ground. Why does not the Government act with decision? Why leave us to certain and speedy destruction?" Then they invoked the aid of the black chiefs who remained attached to their party, and who replied to them only by a fierce silence or by dissimulation. But always allowing themselves to be borne away by vengeance, they surrounded the Captain-general with their pernicious counsels, and he, instead of employing clemency and mildness, made use only of arms and punishments. In the cities scaffolds were raised, which were bathed in the blood of the blacks. They even executed women and children, whose only crime was that they had brothers, fathers, or husbands, among the revolters; they were accused of corresponding with them-the penalty of such intercourse was death. Port-au-Prince, in consternation at the ravages of Lamour de Rance, became the special theatre of executions. All suffered death with intrepidity, calmness, and resignation. The more numerous the executions, the more extensive were the desertions. Instead of terrifying they exasperated; they fed the insurrection, though they intended to suppress it.

While the scaffolds were crowded with victims, Leclerc applied to Dessalines for assistance. He went to the Cape, and renewed his protestations of fidelity and devotedness. Cruel as false, the monster declared that he thirsted for the blood of the revolters. In a moment when his indignation had gained the mastery, and the agitation of his members manifested more rage than even his words, the General-in-chief said to him in transport, "The

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