Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume III. Walter Scott

to France those possessions of which the British naval superiority had so long deprived her – colonies, shipping, and commerce.28

      A powerful expedition was fitted out at the harbours of Brest, L'Orient, and Rochefort, destined to restore St. Domingo in full subjection to the French empire. The fleet amounted to thirty-four ships bearing forty guns and upwards, with more than twenty frigates and smaller armed vessels. They had on board above twenty thousand men, and General Leclerc, the brother-in-law of the first consul, was named commander-in-chief of the expedition, having a staff composed of officers of acknowledged skill and bravery.

      It is said that Buonaparte had the art to employ a considerable proportion of the troops which composed the late army of the Rhine, in this distant expedition to an insalubrious climate.29 But he would not permit it to be supposed, that there was the least danger; and he exercised an act of family authority on the subject, to prove that such were his real sentiments. His sister, the beautiful Pauline, afterwards the wife of Prince Borghese, showed the utmost reluctance to accompany her present husband, General Leclerc, upon the expedition, and only went on board when actually compelled to do so by the positive orders of the first consul, who, although she was his favourite sister, was yet better contented that she should share the general risk, than, by remaining behind, leave it to be inferred that he himself augured a disastrous conclusion to the expedition.

      The armament set sail on the 14th of December, 1801, while an English squadron of observation, uncertain of their purpose, waited upon and watched their progress to the West Indies. The French fleet presented themselves before Cape François, on the 29th of January, 1802.

      Toussaint, summoned to surrender, seemed at first inclined to come to an agreement, terrified probably by the great force of the expedition, which time and the climate could alone afford the negroes any chance of resisting. A letter was delivered to him from the first consul, expressing esteem for his person; and General Leclerc offered him the most favourable terms, together with the situation of lieutenant-governor. Ultimately, however, Toussaint could not make up his mind to trust the French, and he determined upon resistance, which he managed with considerable skill. Nevertheless, the well-concerted military operations of the whites soon overpowered for the present the resistance of Toussaint and his followers. Chief after chief surrendered, and submitted themselves to General Leclerc. At length, Toussaint L'Ouverture himself seems to have despaired of being able to make further or more effectual resistance. He made his formal submission, and received and accepted Leclerc's pardon, under the condition that he should retire to a plantation at Gonaives, and never leave it without permission of the commander-in-chief.

      DEATH OF TOUSSAINT.

      The French had not long had possession of the colony, ere they discovered, or supposed they had discovered, symptoms of a conspiracy amongst the negroes, and Toussaint was, on very slight grounds, accused as encouraging a revolt. Under this allegation, the only proof of which was a letter, capable of an innocent interpretation, the unfortunate chief was seized upon, with his whole family, and put on board of a vessel bound to France. Nothing official was ever learned concerning his fate, farther than that he was imprisoned in the Castle of Joux, in Franche Compté, where the unhappy African fell a victim to the severity of an Alpine climate,30 to which he was unaccustomed, and the privations of a close confinement. The deed has been often quoted and referred to as one of the worst actions of Buonaparte, who ought, if not in justice, in generosity at least, to have had compassion on the man, whose fortunes bore, in many respects, a strong similarity to his own. It afforded but too strong a proof, that though humanity was often in Napoleon's mouth, and sometimes displayed in his actions, yet its maxims were seldom found sufficient to protect those whom he disliked or feared, from the fate which tyranny most willingly assigns to its victims, that of being silently removed from the living world, and enclosed in their prison as in a tomb, from which no complaints can be heard, and where they are to await the slow approach of death, like men who are literally buried alive.

      The perfidy with which the French had conducted themselves towards Toussaint, was visited by early vengeance. That scourge of Europeans, the yellow fever, broke out among their troops, and in an incredible short space of time, swept off General Leclerc,31 with many of his best officers and bravest soldiers. The negroes, incensed at the conduct of the governor towards Toussaint, and encouraged by the sickly condition of the French army, rose upon them in every quarter. A species of war ensued, of which we are thankful it is not our task to trace the deplorable and ghastly particulars. The cruelty which was perhaps to be expected in the savage Africans, just broke loose from the bondage of slavery, communicated itself to the civilized French. If the former tore out their prisoners' eyes with cork-screws, the latter drowned their captives by hundreds, which imitation of Carrier's republican baptism they called "deportation into the sea." On other occasions, numerous bodies of negroes were confined in hulks, and there smothered to death with the fumes of lighted sulphur. The issue of this hellish warfare was, that the cruelty of the French enraged, instead of terrifying their savage antagonists; and at length, that the numbers of the former, diminished by disease and constant skirmishing, became unequal to the defence even of the garrison towns of the island, much more so to the task of reconquering it. General Rochambeau, who succeeded Leclerc as commander-in-chief, was finally obliged to save the poor wreck of that fine army, by submitting at discretion to an English squadron, 1st December 1803. Thus was the richest colony in the West Indies finally lost to France.32 Remaining entirely in the possession of the black population, St. Domingo will show, in process of time, how far the natives of Africa, having European civilisation within their reach, are capable of forming a state, governed by the usual rules of polity.

      COURT OF THE TUILERIES.

      While Buonaparte made these strong efforts for repossessing France in this fine colony, it was not to be supposed that he was neglecting the establishment of his own power upon a more firm basis. His present situation was – like every other in life – considerably short of what he could have desired, though so infinitely superior to all that his most unreasonable wishes could at one time have aspired to. He had all the real power of royalty, and, since the settlement of his authority for life, he had daily assumed more of the pomp and circumstance with which sovereignty is usually invested. The Tuileries were once more surrounded with guards without, and filled by levees within. The ceremonial of a court was revived, and Buonaparte, judging of mankind with accuracy, neglected no minute observance by which the princes of the earth are wont to enforce their authority. Still there remained much to be done. He held the sovereignty only in the nature of a life-rent. He could, indeed, dispose of it by will, but the last wills even of kings have been frequently set aside; and, at any rate, the privilege comes short of that belonging to an hereditary crown, which descends, by the right of blood, from one possessor to another, so that, in one sense, it may be said to confer on the dynasty a species of immortality. Buonaparte knew also the virtue of names. The title of chief consul did not necessarily infer sovereign rights – it might signify every thing, or it might signify nothing – in common language, it inferred alike one of the annual executive governors of the Roman Republic, whose fasces swayed the world, or the petty resident who presides over commercial affairs in a foreign seaport. There were no precise ideas of power or rights necessarily and unalienably connected with it. Besides, Buonaparte had other objections to his present title of dignity. The title of first consul implied, that there were two others, – far, indeed, from being co-ordinate with Napoleon, but yet who occupied a higher rank on the steps of the throne, and approached his person more nearly than he could have desired. Again, the word reminded the hearer, even by the new mode of its application, that it belonged to a government of recent establishment, and of revolutionary origin, and Napoleon did not wish to present such ideas to the public mind; since that which was but lately erected might be easily destroyed, and that which last arose out of the revolutionary cauldron might, like the phantoms which had preceded it, give place in its turn to an apparition more potent. Policy seemed to recommend to him, to have recourse to the ancient model which Europe had been long accustomed to reverence; to adopt the form of government best known and longest established through the greater part of the world; and, assuming

28

"The party of the colonists was very powerful in Paris: public opinion required the possession of St. Domingo. On the other hand, the first consul was not sorry to dissipate the apprehensions of the English, by sending 15,000 men to St. Domingo. These 15,000 men would have succeeded, had it not been for the yellow fever. If Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe had chosen to submit, they would have secured their liberty, rank, and fortune, as well as those of the people of their colour; the freedom of the blacks would have been securely confirmed." – Napoleon, Montholon, tom. ii., p. 218.

29

"The first consul ardently seized the happy opportunity of sending away a great number of officers, formed in the school of Moreau, whose reputation pained him, and whose influence with the army, if not a subject of alarm, was at least to him one of restraint and inquietude. 'Well,' said Buonaparte to me one day, 'your Jacobins malignantly say, that they are the soldiers and friends of Moreau whom I am sending to perish at St. Domingo; they are grumbling maniacs; let them talk on.'" – Fouché, tom. i., p. 217.

30

Anxiety, age, and a climate too severe for his constitution, soon put an end to his days. He died on April 27, 1803, after a captivity of ten months. His mysterious fate excited great interest – witness the noble sonnet of Wordsworth: —

"Toussaint! the most unhappy man of men!Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shedHis beams around thee, or thou rest thy headPillow'd in some dark dungeon's noisome den —O, miserable chieftain! where and whenWilt thou find patience? – Yet die not; do thouWear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behindPowers that will work for thee – Air, Earth, and Skies;There's not a breathing of the common windThat will forget thee; thou hast great allies;Thy friends are Exultations, Agonies,And Love, and Man's unconquerable Mind."

31

"Leclerc was an officer of the first merit, equally skilful in the labours of the cabinet and in the manœuvres of the field of battle: he had served in the campaigns of 1796 and 1797 as adjutant-general to Napoleon; and in that of 1799 as a general of division under Moreau. He commanded at the battle of Freisingen, where he defeated the Archduke Ferdinand; he led into Spain an army of observation, of 20,000 men, intended to act against Portugal; finally, in this expedition of St. Domingo, he displayed great talent and activity." – Napoleon, tom. i., p. 211.

32

"I have to reproach myself with the attempt made upon the colony during the Consulship. The design of reducing it by force was a great error. I ought to have been satisfied with governing it through the medium of Toussaint." – Napoleon, Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 171.