from you,' reply, 'The Republic has given us our
liberty: it will not allow it to be taken from us.'" Of a similar
tenor was his public declaration a fortnight later, that at St.
Domingo and Guadeloupe everybody was free and would remain free. Very
different were his private instructions. On the last day of October he
ordered Talleyrand to write to the British Government, asking for
their help in supplying provisions from Jamaica to this expedition
destined to "destroy the new Algiers being organized in American
waters"; and a fortnight later he charged him to state his resolve to
destroy the government of the blacks at St. Domingo; that if he had to
postpone the expedition for a year, he would be "obliged to constitute
the blacks as French"; and that "the liberty of the blacks, if
recognized by the Government, would always be a support for the
Republic in the New World." As he was striving to cajole our
Government into supporting his expedition, it is clear that in the
last enigmatic phrase he was bidding for that support by the hint of a
prospective restoration of slavery at St. Domingo. A comparison of his
public and private statements must have produced a curious effect on
the British Ministers, and many of the difficulties during the
negotiations at Amiens doubtless sprang out of their knowledge of his
double-dealing in the West Indies.

The means at the First Consul's disposal might have been considered
sufficient to dispense with these paltry devices; for when the
squadrons of Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, and Toulon had joined their
forces, they mustered thirty-two ships of the line and thirty-one
frigates, with more than 20,000 troops on board. So great, indeed, was
the force as to occasion strong remonstrances from the British
Government, and a warning that a proportionately strong fleet would be
sent to watch over the safety of our West Indies.[197] The size of the
French armada and the warnings which Toussaint received from Europe
induced that wily dictator to adopt stringent precautionary measures.
He persuaded the blacks that the French were about to enslave them
once more, and, raising the spectre of bondage, he quelled sedition,
ravaged the maritime towns, and awaited the French in the interior, in
confident expectation that yellow fever would winnow their ranks and
reduce them to a level with his own strength.

His hopes were ultimately realized, but not until he himself succumbed
to the hardihood of th