fancies you have buried should be lost; and though he does not intend to give you your freedom as the price of the disclosure, yet he sends his aide-de-camp to trick you into some kind of confession on the point, which he may turn to account, and in the result of which, if it is enough, he may find some compensation for the millions he has lavished in Saint Domingo in making you his captive.

Toussaint, great in misfortune, gave for his reply, "I have lost something very different from money." Yes, thou hadst lost the liberty thou didst once enjoy; and, peradventure, in a moment of sorrow thou thoughtest thou hadst lost the sacred cause in which thou hadst put thy soul.

But mark this Consul's mean spirit. He had his victim there cooped up only too safely in that humid and infected prison. Still he was unsatisfied. Possibly the prisoner had money. If so, why its hiding-place must be ascertained, ere his lips are sealed in the silence of death. "Go then, Cafarelli, get the secret out of the old negro, and then he may be allowed to die.” Toussaint would not resign himself to his fate without an effort. There was only one tribunal, and that tribunal was a perjured one. Yet an appeal might have some effect. The following letter was therefore written :—

In the dungeon of Fort Joux, this 30 Fructidor, an. xi. (17th September, 1802.)

"GENERAL, AND FIRST CONSUL,

"The respect and the submission which I could wish for ever graven on my heart-[here words are wanting, as if obliterated by tears]. If I have sinned in doing my duty, it is contrary to my intentions; if I was wrong in forming the constitution, it was through my great desire to do good; it was through having employed too much zeal, too much self-love, thinking I was pleasing the government under which I was; if the formalities which I ought to have observed were neglected, it was through inattention. I have had the misfortune to incur your wrath, but as to fidelity and probity, I am strong in my conscience, and I dare affirm, that among all the servants of the

state no one is more honest than myself. I was one of your soldiers, and the first servant of the Republic in Saint Domingo; but now I am wretched, ruined, dishonoured, a victim of my own services; let your sensibility be moved at my position. You are too great in feeling and too just not to pronounce a judgment as to my destiny. I charge General Cafarelli, your aide-de-camp, to put my report into your hands. I beg you to take it into your best consideration. His honour, his frankness, have forced me to open my heart to him.

“Salutation and respect,

"TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

Days passed away, and no notice was taken of this epistle. The report of which it speaks was either suppressed or neglected. Dead to pity, Bonaparte watched for the consummation of the villany he had designed. It was customary to allow the commander of the prison five francs (about four shillings) a day for the subsistence of each prisoner; the First Consul wrote that three were sufficient for a revolter. More than sufficient for thy base purpose ! Didst thou remember those words when thou didst beat thyself against the bars of thy own cage in the island of St. Helena, complaining daily of a table which, compared with thy allowance to "the first of the blacks," was a banquet of delicacies to "a dinner of herbs!" While the process of gradual starvation was going forward, its unconscious victim, outraged by his sufferings, wrote this spirited epistle to his persecutor :

In the dungeon of Fort Joux, this 7 Vendémiaire, an. xi. (29th September, 1802.)

"GENERAL, AND FIRST CONSUL,

"I beg you, in the name of God, in the name of humanity, to cast a favourable eye on my appeal, on my position, and my family; direct your great genius to my conduct, to the manner in which I have served my country, to all the dangers I have run in discharging my duty. I have served my country with fidelity and probity; I have served it with zeal and courage; I have been devoted to the Government under which I was; I

have sacrificed my blood, and a part of what I possessed, to serve my country, and in spite of my efforts, all my labours have been in vain. You will permit me, First Consul, to say to you, with all the respect and submission which I owe you, that the Government has been completely deceived in regard to Toussaint L'Ouverture, in regard to one of its most zealous and courageous servants in Saint Domingo. I laboured long to acquire honour and glory from the Government, and to gain the esteem of my fellow-citizens, and I am now, for my reward, crowned with thorns and the most marked ingratitude. I do not deny the faults I may have committed, and for which I beg your pardon. But those faults do not deserve the fourth of the punishment I have received, nor the treatment I have undergone.

"First Consul, it is a misfortune for me that I am not known to you. If you had thoroughly known me while I was at Saint Domingo, you would have done me more justice; my heart is good. I am not learned, I am ignorant; but my father, who is now blind,* showed me the road of virtue and honour, and I am very strong in my conscience in that matter; and if I had not been devoted to the Government, I should not have been here— that is a truth! I am wretched, miserable, a victim of all my services. All my life I have been in active service, and since the revolution of the 10th of August, 1790, I have constantly been in the service of my country. Now I am a prisoner, with no power to do anything; sunk in grief, my health is impaired.

"I have asked you for my freedom that I may labour, that I may gain my subsistence and support my unhappy family. I call on your greatness, on your genius, to pronounce a judgment on my destiny. Let your heart be softened and touched by my position and my misfortunes.

"I salute you, with profound respect, (Signed)

"TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE."

Alas! the First Consul has pronounced judgment, and the

* Gaou-Guinou, Toussaint's father, died in 1804, having completely lost his sight. He is said to have left the world uttering curses against white men. Wrong as this was, he had only too much cause for his wrath.

consequent sentence the prisoner is even now undergoing. That sentence is "slow death!" And then as you, Toussaint, shake with the cold of the northern blast, or sink overcome with sorrow on the moist, foul floor of your cell, or refuse with loathing the unsavoury food; and as your limbs part with their strength, and your heart flutters in debility, and your blood becomes thin and poor, and as you look to the winter's frost, snow, hail, and storm, with a vague distress and dismal forebodings-in each step of the process of slow death the Consul's verdict goes into execution, and another day, or another week, is taken from the brief number that remain to you.

Yet well and noble is it, that under the depression of your unhappy condition, while your heart sinks with the sinking of your ill-supported frame-it is well and noble that you descend to no mean flatteries, that you descend to no unworthy supplications, and that, retaining your own high manly spirit, you protest your innocence, proclaim your services, and charge your enemies with ingratitude.

Toussaint L'Ouverture then began to compose with his own hand a document, in which he entered into a systematic defence of his conduct. This document, the orthography of which is said to have been defective, was couched in correct and sometimes eloquent terms. By permission of the governor of the castle, it was copied by Martial-Besse, then one of his prisoners, and on the 2nd of October it was transmitted to the First Consul. The document contained the following passages:—“ General Leclerc employed towards me means which have never been employed towards the greatest enemies. Doubtless, I owe that contempt to my colour; but has that colour prevented me from serving my country with zeal and fidelity? Does the colour of my body injure my honour or my courage? Suppose I was criminal, and that the General-in-Chief had orders to arrest me, was it needful to employ a hundred carbineers to arrest my wife and children, to tear them from their residence without respect, and without regard for their rank, their sex; without humanity, and without charity? Was it necessary to fire on my plantations, and on my family, to ransack and pil

T

lage my property? No! My wife, my children, my household, were under no responsibility,-have no account to render to Government; General Leclerc had not even the right to arrest them. Was that officer afraid of a rival? I compare him to the Roman Senate, that pursued Hannibal even into his retirement. I request that he and I may appear before a tribunal, and that the Government bring forward the whole of my correspondence with him. By that means, my innocence, and all I have done for the Republic, will be seen.

"First Consul, father of all French soldiers, upright judge, defender of the innocent, pronounce a decision as to my destiny: my wound is deep, apply a remedy to it: you are the physician, I rely entirely on your wisdom and skill.”

These appeals to the justice, honour, and humanity of the First Consul proved abortive. Bonaparte's mind was made up. His ear, therefore, was closed. Toussaint spoke to a foregone conclusion; his words were encountered by a fixed determination. That determination was so fixed, and so well known, that no one dared to speak in favour of the oppressed and doomed hero. Fear of the supreme magistrate occupied all minds around him, and gave to his will the force of law.

Mars Plaisir

That precipitate and iron mind found the process of slow murder too slow. Solitude, cold, and short fare, were tardy in their operation. Their natural tardiness was not abated by the presence with the captive of his faithful servant. was therefore taken away by an express order of the Government. In parting from him, Toussaint L'Ouverture said, “Carry my last farewell to my wife, my children, and my niece. Would I could console thee under this cruel separation: be assured of my friendship and of the remembrance which I shall always preserve of thy services and of thy devotedness."

Toussaint, thou art still the same, still self-forgetful, still mindful of thy wife and family. The disinterested benevolence which made thee a patriot, and which the prospect of supreme power could not bribe into subjection, remains unchilled by the cold of the Jura mountains, and unsuppressed by bodily weakness, and unperverted by ingratitude and perfidy.