al to the
British Government for protection. Lord Hawkesbury accorded to him an
informal interview in the closing days of 1792. Curt pressed him for
official help, without which his fellow colonists must lose their lives
and property, and declared that he and many others abjured the name of
Frenchmen.[367] Malouet, once prominent in the National Assembly and
destined to become famous under Napoleon, also approached our Ministers,
but with more caution. He knew that in some of the islands the Republic
had many adherents; but after the outbreak of war in February 1793 he
too advocated the sovereignty of Great Britain under certain conditions,
and on behalf of the colonists of Hayti signed a compact with Dundas to
that effect.

Fear of a revolt of the slaves had induced Ministers to send out
reinforcements, so that, early in 1793, 19 battalions were in the
British West Indies. In the month of April a small British force easily
captured Tobago and restored that valuable little island to Great
Britain. An attack on Martinique at midsummer was, however, a failure.
These attempts, it may be noted, were made with forces already in the
West Indies.[368] Pitt and Dundas have been severely blamed for sending
further reinforcements to the West Indies.[369] But a letter which Pitt
wrote to Grenville some time in June or July 1793 shows that the news
of a French expedition having set sail to the West Indies, escorted by
six or seven sail-of-the-line from Brest, led him to urge the despatch
of a force for the protection of that important group of colonies.[370]

Besides, was a forward policy in the West Indies unwise? In these days
it is hard to realize the value of those islands. The mention of Hayti
conjures up a vision as of a ship manned by gorillas; for there and in
Liberia is seen the proneness of the negroes to aimless lounging varied
by outbursts of passion. But in the year 1789 Hayti far surpassed
Jamaica in wealth and activity. The French possessed only the western
third of the island; but the Spanish portion to the east was far less
fertile, and far worse cultivated. The French genius for colonization
was seen in the excellent system of irrigation carried on in the vast
and fertile plain, the _Cul-de-Sac_, east of the capital,
Port-au-Prince. But other portions, notably the long peninsula to the
south-west, were also highly prosperous. The chief towns equalled in
splendour and activity the provincial cities of France. Port