CHAPTER XVIII. CHRISTOPHE AS KING, AND PÉTION AS PRESIDENT OF HAYTI.
Christophe, now enthroned as the sovereign of the North, seized upon the leisure which was afforded him after perfecting the internal details of his new government, to attempt a peaceable union of the blacks of the South with those who were already the loyal subjects of what he considered the legitimate authority of the Island. For this purpose a large deputation was dispatched from his capital, to proceed into the territory of the republic as the envoys of the black king, who proposed the union of the whole population in one undivided government, secured under the form of an hereditary monarchy, both from the revolutions and weakness of one, the structure of which was more popular. These emissaries, sent to declare the clemency and peaceful intentions of the monarch of the North, were taken from among the prisoners who had fallen into the power of Christophe by the capitulation of the Mole St. Nicholas, and who had been adopted into the royal army, and made the sharers of the royal bounty of the black king. To assist in this new measure, a proclamation was issued from the palace at Cape Henry on the 4th of September, 1811, addressed to the inhabitants of the South, who were no longer called the enemies of the royal government, but erring children, misled by the designing; and they were implored to return to their allegiance to the paternal government of that chief who had just been constituted the hereditary prince of the blacks. “A new era,” said this royal document, “has now dawned upon the destinies of Hayti.
“New grades, new employments, new dignities; in fine, an order of hereditary nobility are hereafter to be the rewards of those who devote themselves to the State. You can participate in all these advantages. Come, then, to join the ranks of those who have placed themselves under the banners of the royal authority, which has no other design than the happiness and glory of the country.”
This policy of Christophe was to employ the weapons of Pétion against himself. But the republican chieftain was in better play with the foils than his more unsophisticated rival of the monarchy, and Christophe soon discovered that while he was attacking the government of Pétion by appeals to the blacks, who were to be dazzled with his royal goodness, the arts of his rival were employed in the very heart of his dominions, and had already insinuated the poison of rebellion among his most trusted subjects. His infant navy had hardly been launched and manned with the objects of his clemency and royal favor, when a detachment of the squadron, consisting of the Princess Royal and several brigs of war, abjured his authority, and raised the standard of the republic. This defection was punished by an English frigate under Sir James Lucas Yeo,[40] who captured the rebellious squadron, and restored the agents to Christophe’s vengeance.
Indignant at these attempts of the mulatto government to divert the affections of his subjects from their sworn allegiance to his throne, Christophe resolved on immediate war and the employment of the sword against that race whose pride and hatred made them the enemies of the pure blacks. Conscious of his military superiority, he resolved to make his preparations for the intended enterprise such as to ensure success over his opponent, and all the disposable forces of his army were gathered together for an invasion of the territories of the Republic.
The Artibonite was soon crossed, and Pétion’s forces, under the command of General Boyer, were met and defeated in the gorges of the mountains of St. Marks; and the way thus laid open for an immediate advance on Port au Prince.
The siege of this place was the object of the expedition, and Christophe pressed forward once more to try the fortune of war against his hated enemy. So sudden was the invasion, that Pétion was taken totally unprepared—a considerable portion of his army being absent from the capital, employed in watching the movements of General Borgella in the south.
In this state of weakness the town might have been surprised, and fallen an easy prey to the invading army, but Christophe had not calculated upon such a speedy result, and though his vanguard had seized upon a post a little to the north of the town, while the inhabitants in their exposed condition were panic-struck at the certain prospect of being captured immediately, the arrival of the main body of Christophe’s army being delayed twenty-four hours, time was thus afforded to Pétion to rally and concentrate his means of defence, so as to be prepared for an effectual resistance. Christophe’s whole force came up the next day, and Pétion’s capital was nearly surrounded by a formidable train of artillery, and an army of twenty thousand men.
In this gigantic attempt of their old adversary, the mulattoes felt with terror that defeat and conquest would not be to them a simple change of government, but would involve in its tremendous consequences the total extermination of their race. In so hazardous a situation, they were taught to reflect upon the madness of their ambition, which, by sowing dissensions among themselves, had exposed them, weak and unarmed, to the whole power of their natural enemy. In so fearful a crisis, the resolution was at last taken to repair their former error, and thus avert the disasters which now overhung them by an attenuated thread. Negotiations were hastily commenced with General Borgella, who, sympathizing with his brethren of Port au Prince in their perilous situation, consented to conditions of peace, and even yielded himself to the orders of Pétion. The assistance of the army of the South was thus secured, and General Borgella at the head of his forces marched to the assistance of Pétion, and succeeded, in spite of the efforts of Christophe, in gaining an entrance into the town.
The operations of the siege had already commenced; but the mulattoes, now united, were enabled to make a vigorous defence. Christophe’s formidable train of artillery had been mounted in batteries upon the heights above the town, and kept up a slow but ceaseless fire upon the works of the garrison within.
Pétion conducted the defence with considerable ability, and a succession of vigorous sallies made upon the lines of the besieging army without the town, taught the latter that they had a formidable adversary to overcome before the town would yield itself to their mercy.
Amidst these continued struggles, which daily gave employment to the two forces, and had already begun to inflame Christophe with the rage of vexation that his anticipated success was so likely to be exchanged for defeat, Pétion had, one day, at the head of a reconnoitering party, advanced too far beyond his lines, when he was pursued by a squadron of the enemy’s cavalry.
The President of the Republic had been discovered by the decorations upon his hat; and the enemy kept up a hot pursuit, which hung upon the very footsteps of the mulatto commander-in-chief, whose escape in such circumstances seemed impossible, when one of his officers devoted himself to death to save the life of his chief.
Exchanging hats with the president, he rode swiftly in another direction. The whole party of the enemy were thus drawn after him, and he was soon overtaken and cut down, while Pétion made his escape into the town.
The siege of Port au Prince had now continued two months, and the obstinacy of its defence had already begun to make Christophe despair of final success, when an occurrence took place which determined him to raise it immediately. Indignant at the tyranny of the black king, several chiefs of his army had formed a conspiracy to assassinate him during his attendance at church. Christophe was always punctual at mass, and upon these occasions the church was filled with officers in waiting, and surrounded with soldiers. It had been arranged to stab him while he was kneeling at the altar, and then to proclaim the death of the tyrant to the soldiery, whose attachment to their monarch, it was thought, was not so warm as to render such an enterprise hazardous.
This dangerous undertaking had been prepared in such secrecy, that a great number of the officers and soldiers of the army had been drawn into the ranks of the conspirators, and all things were now in readiness for the final blow. In this stage of the transaction, a mulatto proved faithless to his associates, and informed Christophe minutely of all the plans of the conspiracy, and of all the agents who had devoted themselves to his destruction.
The monarch, thus possessed of a full knowledge of all that had been prepared against him, concealed the vengeful feelings that burned within him under an appearance of the utmost composure. He feared lest a whisper intimating that he had been informed of the intentions of the conspirators might snatch them from his vengeance by urging them to desert to the enemy. At the usual hour the troops paraded at the church, and Christophe, instead of entering to assist at the mass, placed himself at the head of his army, and designated by their names the leaders of the conspiracy, who were ordered to march to the centre. An order was then given to the troops to fire, and the execution was complete.
A black named Etienne Magny, was one of the ablest of Christophe’s generals; and though he had been secretary to the council of state that had raised the latter to the throne of Hayti, he had now become so dissatisfied with his work that nothing retained him to the standard of his king but the reflection that his family, whom he had left at Cape Henry, would be required to pay the forfeit of his defection with their heads. A body of black soldiers, who were upon the point of deserting to the army of Pétion, willing to give éclat to their defection by taking their commander with them, surrounded the tent of Magny by night, and communicated to him their intention. The black general hesitated not to express his willingness to accompany them; but he urged that tenderness for his family forbade an attempt which would doom them all to certain destruction.
The black soldiers refused to yield to these considerations, and seizing upon Magny, they bore him off undressed, and without his arms, into the town. To preserve the lives of Magny’s family, Pétion treated him as a prisoner of war; and he remained at Port au Prince until the death of Christophe, when he was made the commander of the North under Boyer.
Christophe, discouraged at his defeats, and enraged at the sweeping defections which were every day diminishing the numbers of his army, and strengthening the resources of his rival, now commenced his retreat towards the north, whence intelligence had lately reached him of designs in preparation against him among his own subjects. The army of the republic, under General Boyer, commenced a pursuit. The cause of Pétion seemed triumphant. Boyer pressed closely upon the rear of the royal army, and Christophe seemed on the point of losing all, when the cautious policy of Pétion restrained Boyer’s activity, and the republicans turned back from the pursuit. Christophe had been foiled in his great effort by Pétion and Borgella, and he now regarded the mulattoes with a hatred so deep and fiendlike, that nothing would satisfy the direness of his vengeance but the utter extermination of that race. A body of mulatto women of the town of Gonaives, who had sympathized with their brethren of Port au Prince in the struggle which the latter were maintaining against the power of Christophe, and with this communion of feeling had made prayers to the Virgin against the success of their king, became the first victims of the rage of Christophe against their race.
They were marched out of the town, and all subjected to military execution, without a distinction in their punishment or consideration of mercy for their sex. Christophe had long ago resolved to rest the foundation of his power upon the support of the pure blacks, and he now determined to make his administration one of ceaseless hatred and persecution to the mulattoes.
Through the influence of this policy, he hoped to make the number of the blacks prevail over the superior intelligence and bravery of the mulattoes.