But Boyer was not to be turned aside from his resolution of rescuing the best districts of his territory from continual spoliation, and when the panic had subsided which had been inspired by the threatened invasion of Christophe, he put his troops in motion in the autumn of 1819, for a campaign against the Maroons of Grande Anse. The troops of the republic met, and defeated the brigands.
Having accomplished the objects of his visit, and left peace and tranquillity where those conditions had so long been unknown, Boyer commenced his return to his capital, gratified that his attainment of power had been effected so peaceably, and that the hopes of his administration were already based more solidly than ever upon the wishes of the people.
Boyer had now attained complete success in his design to shut the boundaries of his states against the machinations of Christophe; and until a more favorable moment he contented himself to maintain a policy strictly defensive against an opponent so warlike. The latter, on his side, enraged at the defeat and overthrow of his allies of Grande Anse, began to threaten another invasion of Boyer’s territory, and many months glided away in the daily expectation of the commencement of hostilities between the two governments. In this interval the growing tyranny of Christophe forced a flood of emigration from his realms into the territories of the republic, and the very household troops of the monarch began to desert in large numbers from the service of a sovereign whose cruelty decimated their ranks at the instigation of his caprice. Bold, crafty, and suspicious, Christophe with one breath congratulated his subjects upon the glorious possession which they held of personal liberty and national independence, and with another he doomed them to scourgings, imprisonment, and death.
So unlimited and habitual was his severity, that it was said of him that he would put a man to death with as little hesitation as a sportsman would bring down an article of game. His dungeons were filled with thousands of victims of all colors, and new detachments of prisoners were daily arriving to swell the number. The innocent were confounded with the guilty; for under the promptings of his hatred or jealousy, the despot would not stop to make nice discriminations.
CHAPTER XXI. INSURRECTION, AND DEATH OF CHRISTOPHE.
Christophe, who now might be denominated the Caligula of the blacks, was every day adding to the discontent and terror of his subjects. His soldiers were treated with extreme severity for every real or fancied fault, and they sought for nothing so earnestly as for an occasion to abandon his service, and gain an asylum within the territories of his rival; or to attempt, what they scarcely dared to meditate, the dethronement of a tyrant who caused them to pass their lives in wretchedness. Christophe possessed a knowledge of this disaffection entertained towards him, and instead of seeking to assure and perpetuate the allegiance of his army, to the bayonets of which he was indebted for his power, his vengeance became every day more watchful and more terrible, until his conduct exceeded in cruelty even that which had already spread hatred and misery throughout the nation. Christophe determined to rule through the inspirement of fear alone, and he practised no arts of conciliation to preserve to his interests those even who were necessary to the maintenance of his power.