Walter Scott - Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III

A powerful expedition was fitted out at the harbours of Brest, L'Orient, and Rochefort, destined to restore St. Domingo in full subjection to the French empire. The fleet amounted to thirty-four ships bearing forty guns and upwards, with more than twenty frigates and smaller armed vessels. They had on board above twenty thousand men, and General Leclerc, the brother-in-law of the first consul, was named commander-in-chief of the expedition, having a staff composed of officers of acknowledged skill and bravery.

It is said that Buonaparte had the art to employ a considerable proportion of the troops which composed the late army of the Rhine, in this distant expedition to an insalubrious climate. 29 29 "The first consul ardently seized the happy opportunity of sending away a great number of officers, formed in the school of Moreau, whose reputation pained him, and whose influence with the army, if not a subject of alarm, was at least to him one of restraint and inquietude. 'Well,' said Buonaparte to me one day, 'your Jacobins malignantly say, that they are the soldiers and friends of Moreau whom I am sending to perish at St. Domingo; they are grumbling maniacs; let them talk on.'" – Fouché, tom. i., p. 217. But he would not permit it to be supposed, that there was the least danger; and he exercised an act of family authority on the subject, to prove that such were his real sentiments. His sister, the beautiful Pauline, afterwards the wife of Prince Borghese, showed the utmost reluctance to accompany her present husband, General Leclerc, upon the expedition, and only went on board when actually compelled to do so by the positive orders of the first consul, who, although she was his favourite sister, was yet better contented that she should share the general risk, than, by remaining behind, leave it to be inferred that he himself augured a disastrous conclusion to the expedition.

The armament set sail on the 14th of December, 1801, while an English squadron of observation, uncertain of their purpose, waited upon and watched their progress to the West Indies. The French fleet presented themselves before Cape François, on the 29th of January, 1802.

Toussaint, summoned to surrender, seemed at first inclined to come to an agreement, terrified probably by the great force of the expedition, which time and the climate could alone afford the negroes any chance of resisting. A letter was delivered to him from the first consul, expressing esteem for his person; and General Leclerc offered him the most favourable terms, together with the situation of lieutenant-governor. Ultimately, however, Toussaint could not make up his mind to trust the French, and he determined upon resistance, which he managed with considerable skill. Nevertheless, the well-concerted military operations of the whites soon overpowered for the present the resistance of Toussaint and his followers. Chief after chief surrendered, and submitted themselves to General Leclerc. At length, Toussaint L'Ouverture himself seems to have despaired of being able to make further or more effectual resistance. He made his formal submission, and received and accepted Leclerc's pardon, under the condition that he should retire to a plantation at Gonaives, and never leave it without permission of the commander-in-chief.

DEATH OF TOUSSAINT.

The French had not long had possession of the colony, ere they discovered, or supposed they had discovered, symptoms of a conspiracy amongst the negroes, and Toussaint was, on very slight grounds, accused as encouraging a revolt. Under this allegation, the only proof of which was a letter, capable of an innocent interpretation, the unfortunate chief was seized upon, with his whole family, and put on board of a vessel bound to France. Nothing official was ever learned concerning his fate, farther than that he was imprisoned in the Castle of Joux, in Franche Compté, where the unhappy African fell a victim to the severity of an Alpine climate, 30 30 Anxiety, age, and a climate too severe for his constitution, soon put an end to his days. He died on April 27, 1803, after a captivity of ten months. His mysterious fate excited great interest – witness the noble sonnet of Wordsworth: — "Toussaint! the most unhappy man of men! Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head Pillow'd in some dark dungeon's noisome den — O, miserable chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? – Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee – Air, Earth, and Skies; There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are Exultations, Agonies, And Love, and Man's unconquerable Mind." to which he was unaccustomed, and the privations of a close confinement. The deed has been often quoted and referred to as one of the worst actions of Buonaparte, who ought, if not in justice, in generosity at least, to have had compassion on the man, whose fortunes bore, in many respects, a strong similarity to his own. It afforded but too strong a proof, that though humanity was often in Napoleon's mouth, and sometimes displayed in his actions, yet its maxims were seldom found sufficient to protect those whom he disliked or feared, from the fate which tyranny most willingly assigns to its victims, that of being silently removed from the living world, and enclosed in their prison as in a tomb, from which no complaints can be heard, and where they are to await the slow approach of death, like men who are literally buried alive.

The perfidy with which the French had conducted themselves towards Toussaint, was visited by early vengeance. That scourge of Europeans, the yellow fever, broke out among their troops, and in an incredible short space of time, swept off General Leclerc, 31 31 "Leclerc was an officer of the first merit, equally skilful in the labours of the cabinet and in the manœuvres of the field of battle: he had served in the campaigns of 1796 and 1797 as adjutant-general to Napoleon; and in that of 1799 as a general of division under Moreau. He commanded at the battle of Freisingen, where he defeated the Archduke Ferdinand; he led into Spain an army of observation, of 20,000 men, intended to act against Portugal; finally, in this expedition of St. Domingo, he displayed great talent and activity." – Napoleon, tom. i., p. 211. with many of his best officers and bravest soldiers. The negroes, incensed at the conduct of the governor towards Toussaint, and encouraged by the sickly condition of the French army, rose upon them in every quarter. A species of war ensued, of which we are thankful it is not our task to trace the deplorable and ghastly particulars. The cruelty which was perhaps to be expected in the savage Africans, just broke loose from the bondage of slavery, communicated itself to the civilized French. If the former tore out their prisoners' eyes with cork-screws, the latter drowned their captives by hundreds, which imitation of Carrier's republican baptism they called "deportation into the sea." On other occasions, numerous bodies of negroes were confined in hulks, and there smothered to death with the fumes of lighted sulphur. The issue of this hellish warfare was, that the cruelty of the French enraged, instead of terrifying their savage antagonists; and at length, that the numbers of the former, diminished by disease and constant skirmishing, became unequal to the defence even of the garrison towns of the island, much more so to the task of reconquering it. General Rochambeau, who succeeded Leclerc as commander-in-chief, was finally obliged to save the poor wreck of that fine army, by submitting at discretion to an English squadron, 1st December 1803. Thus was the richest colony in the West Indies finally lost to France. 32 32 "I have to reproach myself with the attempt made upon the colony during the Consulship. The design of reducing it by force was a great error. I ought to have been satisfied with governing it through the medium of Toussaint." – Napoleon, Las Cases , tom. iv., p. 171. Remaining entirely in the possession of the black population, St. Domingo will show, in process of time, how far the natives of Africa, having European civilisation within their reach, are capable of forming a state, governed by the usual rules of polity.