Soon after this proclamation Polverel left his colleague at the Cape and
went to Port au Prince, the capital of the West. Here things were quiet
and the cultivation of the crops was going forward as usual. The slaves
were soon unsettled, however, by the news of what was being done
elsewhere, and Polverel was convinced that emancipation could not be
delayed and that for the safety of the planters themselves it was
necessary to extend it to the whole island. In September (1793) he set
in circulation from Aux Cayes a proclamation to this effect, and at the
same time he exhorted all the planters in the vicinity who concurred in
his work to register their names. This almost all of them did, as they
were convinced of the need of measures for their personal safety; and on
February 4, 1794, the Conventional Assembly in Paris formally approved
all that had been done by decreeing the abolition of slavery in all the
colonies of France.

All the while the Spanish and the English had been looking on with
interest and had even come to the French part of the island as if to aid
in the restoration of order. Among the former, at first in charge of
a little royalist band, was the Negro, Toussaint, later called
L'Ouverture. He was then a man in the prime of life, forty-eight years
old, and already his experience had given him the wisdom that was needed
to bring peace in Santo Domingo. In April, 1794, impressed by the decree
of the Assembly, he returned to the jurisdiction of France and took
service under the Republic. In 1796 he became a general of brigade; in
1797 general-in-chief, with the military command of the whole colony.

He at once compelled the surrender of the English who had invaded his
country. With the aid of a commercial agreement with the United States,
he next starved out the garrison of his rival, the mulatto Rigaud, whom
he forced to consent to leave the country. He then imprisoned Roume, the
agent of the Directory, and assumed civil as well as military authority.
He also seized the Spanish part of the island, which had been ceded to
France some years before but had not been actually surrendered. He then,
in May, 1801, gave to Santo Domingo a constitution by which he not only
assumed power for life but gave to himself the right of naming his
successor; and all the while he was awakening the admiration of the
world by his bravery, his moderation, and his genuine instinct for
government.

Across the ocean, however, a