The forces of Rigaud, fighting under the eyes of the chief whom they adored, defended with vigor the passes leading to their territory; and though they were but a handful, in comparison with the hordes who marched under the banners of Toussaint, their brave exertions were generally crowned with success.
The mulattoes under Rigaud, more skilled in the combinations of military movements, made up for their deficiency in numbers by greater rapidity and effectiveness in their operations. A series of masterly manœuvres and diversions were followed up in quick succession, which kept the black army in full employment. But Toussaint was too strong, and he completely broke up the hopes of the mulattoes in a succession of victories, which gave him entire control of the Island, except, perhaps, a small portion of the South, which still held out. Rigaud, reduced in his means of defence, had the misfortune to see his towns fall one after another into the power of Toussaint, until he was driven to the last citadel of his strength—the town of Aux Cayes. As he thus yielded foot by foot, everything was given to desolation before it was abandoned, and the genius of Toussaint was completely at fault in his efforts to force the mulatto general from his last entrenchments.
He was foiled at every attempt, and his enemy stood immovably at bay, notwithstanding the active assaults and overwhelming numbers of his forces.
The government of France was too much engaged at home with her own revolution, to pay any attention to St. Domingo. The republicans in Paris, after getting rid of their enemies, turned upon each other. The revolution, like Saturn, devoured its own children; priest and people were murdered upon the thresholds of justice. Marat died at the hands of Charlotte Corday; Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were guillotined, Robespierre had gone to the scaffold, and Bonaparte was master of France.
The conqueror of Egypt now turned his attention to St. Domingo. It was too important an island to be lost to France, or be destroyed by civil war; and through the mediation of Bonaparte, the war between Toussaint and Rigaud was brought to a close.
With the termination of this struggle, every vestige of slavery, and all obstacles to freedom, disappeared. Toussaint exerted every nerve to make Hayti what it had formerly been. He did everything in his power to promote agriculture; and in this he succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations of the friends of freedom, both in England and France. Even the planters who had remained on the Island acknowledged the prosperity of Hayti under the governorship of the man whose best days had been spent in slavery.
The peace of Amiens left Bonaparte without a rival on the continent, and with a large and experienced army which he feared to keep idle; and he determined to send a part of it to St. Domingo.
The army for the expedition to St. Domingo was fitted out, and no pains or expense spared to make it an imposing one. Fifty-six ships of war, with twenty-five thousand men, left France for Hayti. It was, indeed, the most valiant fleet that had ever sailed from the French dominions. The Alps, the Nile, the Rhine, and all Italy had resounded with the exploits of the men who were now leaving their country for the purpose of placing the chains again on the limbs of the heroic people of St. Domingo. There were men in that army that had followed Bonaparte from the siege of Toulon to the battle under the shades of the pyramids of Egypt,—men who had grown gray in the camp. Among them were several colored men, who had distinguished themselves on the field of battle.
There was Rigaud, the bravest of the mulatto chiefs, whose valor had disputed the laurels with Toussaint. There, too, was Pétion, the most accomplished scholar of whom St. Domingo could boast; and lastly, there was Boyer, who was destined at a future day to be President of the Republic of Hayti. These last three brave men had become dupes and tools of Bonaparte, and were now on their way to assist in reducing the land of their birth to slavery.