ish, and
against the mulattoes, who, inflamed with all the bitterness of _caste_,
had maintained a sanguinary war under their great leader Rigaud, in the
southern part of the colony, the Commissioners invested Toussaint with
the office and dignity of general-in-chief of Santo Domingo.

From that moment began the full development of the vast and versatile
genius of this extraordinary man. Standing amid the terrible, because
hostile, fragments of two revolutions, harassed by the rapacious greed
of commissioners upon commissioners, who, successively dispatched from
France, hid beneath a republican exterior a longing after the spoils;
with an army in the field accustomed by five years' experience to all
the license of civil war, Toussaint, with a giant hand, seized the reins
of government, reduced these conflicting elements to harmony and order,
and raised the colony to nearly its former prosperity, his lofty
intellect always delighting to effect its object rather by the tangled
mazes of diplomacy than by the strong arm of physical force, yet
maintaining a steadfast and unimpeached adherence to truth, his word,
and his honor.

General Maitland, commander of the British forces, finding the reduction
of the island to be utterly hopeless, signed a treaty with Toussaint for
the evacuation of all the posts which he held. "Toussaint then paid him
a visit, and was received with military honors. After partaking of a
grand entertainment, he was presented by General Maitland, in the name
of His Majesty, with a splendid service of plate, and put in possession
of the government-house which had been built and furnished by the
English."

* * * * *

Buonaparte, on becoming First Consul, sent out the confirmation of
Toussaint as commander-in-chief, who, with views infinitely beyond the
short-sighted and selfish vision of the Commissioners, proclaimed a
general amnesty to the planters who had fled during the revolutions,
earnestly invited their return to the possession of their estates, and,
with a delicate regard to their feelings, decreed that the epithet
"emigrant" should not be applied to them. Many of the planters accepted
the invitation, and returned to the peaceful possession of their
estates.

In regard to the army of Toussaint, General Lacroix, one of the planters
who returned, affirms "that never was a European army subjected to a
more rigid discipline than that which was observed by the troops of
Toussaint." Yet this army