in a
new proclamation that ignorance had led him hastily to fall into error,
and that to prevent anything of the same kind, and to provide for the
future welfare and liberty of all, he convened an assembly of
representatives of all the inhabitants, regardless of colour. This won
over the leaders, and finally peace was concluded with Toussaint. The
fallen president wished to retire to his estate and into private life,
but having been cordially invited to meet the general to discuss with
him the welfare of the colony, he was seized at the interview and put on
board a French frigate, which immediately sailed for France. Here he
was imprisoned for life without trial, and finally allowed to starve by
withholding food and water for four days.

The negroes again rose, and the soldiers were by this time so weakened
by yellow fever, which even carried off the Governor, that little could
be done against the rebels. Yet everything possible was attempted.
Bloodhounds were brought from Cuba to worry the rebels to death; they
were shot and taken into the sea to be drowned in strings. Dessalines
had now become their leader, and on the 29th of November, 1803, he with
Christophe and Clervaux, the other rebel chiefs, issued the St. Domingo
declaration of independence. Restored to their primitive dignity the
black and coloured people proclaimed their rights, and swore never to
yield them to any power on earth. "The frightful veil of prejudice is
torn to pieces, and is so for ever; woe be to whomsoever would dare
again to put together its bloody tatters." The landholders were not
forbidden to return if they renounced their old errors and acknowledged
the justice of the cause for which the blacks had been spilling their
blood for twelve years. As for those who affected to believe themselves
destined by Heaven to be masters and tyrants, if they came it would be
to meet chains or to be quickly expelled. They had sworn not to listen
to clemency for those who dared to speak of the restoration of slavery.
Nothing was too costly a sacrifice for liberty, and every means was
lawful to employ against those who wished to suppress it. Were they to
cause rivers and torrents of blood to flow--were they to fire half the
globe to maintain it--they would be innocent before the tribunal of
Providence.

This declaration was followed on the 30th of March, 1804, by an address
of Dessalines, in which he said that everything that reminded them of
France also r