nts the most discordant was doomed to be
of short duration. For the dark spirit of Napoleon, glutted, but not
satiated with the glory banquet afforded at the expense of Europe and
Africa, seized upon this, the most beautiful and happy of the
Hesperides, as the next victim of its remorseless rapacity.

With the double intention of getting rid of the republican army, and
reducing back to slavery the island of Hayti, he sent out his
brother-in-law, General Leclerc, with 26 ships of war and 25,000 men.

Like Leonidas at Thermopylae, or the Bruce at Bannockburn, Toussaint
determined to defend from thraldom his sea-girt isle, made sacred to
liberty by the baptism of blood.

On the 28th of January, 1802, Leclerc arrived off the bay of Samana,
from the promontory of which Toussaint, in anxious alarm, beheld for the
first time in his life so large an armament. "We must all perish," said
he, "all France has come to Santo Domingo!" But this despondency passed
away in a moment, and then this man, who had been a kindly-treated
slave, prepared to oppose to the last that system which he now
considered worse than death.

It is impossible, after so long a tax on your patience, to enter on a
detailed narration of the conflict which ensued. The hour of trial
served only to develop and ennoble the character of Toussaint, who rose,
with misfortune, above the allurements of rank and wealth which were
offered as the price of his submission; and the very ties of parental
love he yielded to the loftier sentiment of patriotism.

On the 2d of February, a division of Leclerc's army, commanded by
General Rochambeau, an old planter, landed at Fort Dauphin, and
ruthlessly murdered many of the inhabitants (freedmen) who, unarmed, had
been led by curiosity to the beach, in order to witness the
disembarkation of the troops.

Christophe, one of the generals of Toussaint, commanding at Cape
Francois, having resisted the menaces and the flattery of Leclerc,
reduced that ill-fated town to ashes, and retired with his troops into
the mountains, carrying with him 2,000 of the white inhabitants of the
Cape, who were protected from injury during the fierce war which ensued.

Having full possession of the plain of the Cape, Leclerc, with a
proclamation of liberty in his hand, in March following re-established
slavery with all its former cruelties.

This treacherous movement thickened the ranks of Toussaint, who
thenceforward so vigorously pressed his opp