A summer on the borders of the Caribbean sea.

by J. Dennis Harris

HE violent and perfidious measures to which Le Clerc had resorted produced an effect diametrically opposed to that which he intended. On the distant mountains, particularly toward the Spanish division, innumerable hosts of blacks had taken up their residence and assumed a species of lawless violence. They ridiculed every idea of a surrender to the Europeans, notwithstanding the compromise which had been made with Toussaint and Christophe. Even among those who had submitted, the sudden seizure of their brave leader and about one hundred of his enlightened associates, of whose fate they could receive no satisfactory account, but who was supposed to have been murdered by Le Clerc, produced a spirit of indignation which was poured forth in execrations portending an approaching storm.

Le Clerc, seated on his painful eminence, saw in a great measure the danger of his situation, and endeavored to counteract the impending evil. But death at this moment was lessening the number of his troops, and sickness disabling the survivors from performing the common duties of their stations.

Dessalines, whose talents and valor, recognized by his countrymen, had caused him to be appointed to act as General-in-Chief, resolved not to dally with his faithless foes as Toussaint had done, but to bring this ferocious war to a speedy and decisive issue. Impressed with this resolution, he drew a considerable force into the plain of Cape François, with a design to attack the city. Rochambeau, perceiving his movements, exerted himself to strengthen the fortifications of the city, after which he determined to risk a general engagement.

Both parties were as well prepared for the event as circumstances would admit. The attack was begun by the French with the utmost resolution, and from the violence of the onset the troops of Dessalines gave way for a moment, and a considerable number fell prisoners into the hands of the French. But the power and courage of the blacks soon returned. The French were repulsed; and as a body of them were marching to strengthen one of the wings of their army, they were unexpectedly surrounded by the blacks, made prisoners of war, and driven in triumph to their camp.

With these vicissitudes terminated the day. At night the French general, to the disgrace of Europe, ordered the black prisoners to be put to death. The order was executed with circumstances of peculiar barbarity. Some perished on the spot; others were mutilated in their limbs, legs, and vital parts, and left in that horrible condition to disturb with their shrieks and groans the silence of the night.

But Rochambeau had to deal with a very different man from Toussaint—a man whose motto was, “Never to retaliate;” for under cover of the same inauspicious night Dessalines deliberately selected the officers from among his prisoners, then added a number of privates, and gibbeted them all together in a place most exposed to the French army.

Nor did the revenge of the black soldiers terminate even here. Burning with indignation against the men whose conduct had stimulated them to such inhuman deeds, they rushed down upon the French the ensuing morning, destroyed the camp, made a terrible slaughter, and compelled the flying fugitives to take refuge under the walls of Cape François. From this period the French were unable to face their opponents in the open field, and the victorious Dessalines immediately took steps to crush them in the city.

To add to the calamities of the French commander, the war between England and France was again renewed during this period of his distress. Unfortunately, however, he remained uninstructed by past experience, and his cruelty seemed to increase with the desperation of his circumstances. Pent up in the city, from which his forces durst not venture in a body, he contrived to detach small parties with bloodhounds to hunt down a few straggling negroes, who wandered through the woods unconscious of the impending danger. These when taken were seized with brutal triumph, and thrown to the dogs to be devoured alive.

Amid scenes and horrors as infamous as these, Le Clerc was summoned by the fever to appear before a higher tribunal to give an account of his deeds of darkness. He died on the 1st of November, after having been driven from Tortuga, his previous place of abode. Madame Le Clerc was present at the awful scene; then, departing with the body for Europe, bade a final farewell to a region which had promised her happiness, but paid her with anguish and mortification.