[36] Brown’s History of Sant. Domingo, Vol. I., p. 257.
CHAPTER XIV. CAPTURE OF TOUSSAINT.
Le Clerc, the brother-in-law of Bonaparte, the man who had married the voluptuous Pauline, was commander-in-chief of the army. Le Clerc was not himself a man of much distinction in military affairs; his close relationship with the ruler of France was all that he had to recommend him to the army of invasion. But he had with him Rochambeau, and other generals, who had few superiors in arms. Before arriving at Hayti the fleet separated, so as to attack the island on different sides.
News of the intended invasion reached St. Domingo some days before the squadron had sailed from Brest; and therefore the blacks had time to prepare to meet their enemies. Toussaint had concentrated his forces at such points as he expected would be first attacked. Christophe was sent to defend Cape City, and Port au Prince was left in the hands of Dessalines.
Le Clerc, with the largest part of the squadron, came to anchor off Cape City, and summoned the place to surrender. The reply which he received from Christophe was such as to teach the captain-general what he had to expect in the subjugation of St. Domingo. “Go tell your general that the French shall march here only over ashes; and that the ground shall burn beneath their feet,” was the answer that Le Clerc obtained in return to his command. The French general sent another messenger to Christophe, urging him to surrender, and promising the black chief a commission of high rank in the French army. But he found he had a man, and not a slave, to deal with. The exasperated Christophe sent back the heroic reply, “The decision of arms can admit you only into a city in ashes; and even on these ashes will I fight still.” The black chief then distributed torches to his principal officers, and awaited the approach of the French.
With no navy, and but little means of defence, the Haytians determined to destroy their towns rather than they should fall into the hands of the enemy. Late in the evening the French ships were seen to change their position, and Christophe, satisfied that they were about to effect a landing, set fire to his own house, which was the signal for the burning of the town. The French general wept as he beheld the ocean of flames rising from the tops of the houses in the finest city in St. Domingo.
Another part of the fleet landed in Samana, where Toussaint, with an experienced wing of the army, was ready to meet them. On seeing the ships enter the harbor, the heroic chief said: “Here come the enslavers of our race. All France is coming to St. Domingo, to try again to put the fetters upon our limbs; but not France with all her troops of the Rhine, the Alps, the Nile, the Tiber, nor all Europe to help her, can extinguish the soul of Africa. That soul, when once the soul of a man, and no longer that of a slave, can overthrow the pyramids, and the Alps themselves, sooner than again be crushed down into slavery.” The French, however, effected a landing, but they found nothing but smouldering ruins where once stood splendid cities. Toussaint and his generals at once abandoned the towns, and betook themselves to the mountains, those citadels of freedom in St. Domingo, where the blacks have always proved too much for the whites.
Toussaint put forth a proclamation to the colored people, in which he said: “You are now to meet and fight enemies who have neither faith, law, nor religion. Let us resolve that these French troops shall never leave our shores alive.” The war commenced, and the blacks were victorious in nearly all the battles. Where the French gained a victory, they put their prisoners to the most excruciating tortures; in many instances burning them in pits, and throwing them into boiling chaldrons. This example of cruelty set by the whites, was followed by the blacks. Then it was that Dessalines, the ferocious chief, satisfied his long pent-up revenge against the white planters and French soldiers that he made prisoners. The French general saw that he could gain nothing from the blacks on the field of battle, and he determined upon a stratagem, in which he succeeded too well.