in which he said:—

"The independence of St. Domingo is proclaimed. Toward men who do us justice we will act as brothers. But we have sworn not to listen with clemency to any one who speaks to us of Slavery. We will be inexorable, perhaps even cruel, toward those who come from Europe to bring among us death and servitude. No sacrifice is too costly, and all means are lawful, when men find that freedom, the greatest of all blessings, is to be wrested from them."

The closing scenes of the revolution were too horrible to be described. General Rochambeau, who commanded the French army after the death of General Le Clerc, was a tyrannical and cruel tool of the slaveholders.[81] Everywhere colored men were seized and executed without forms of law. Maurepas, who had been one of Toussaint's most distinguished generals, was seized on suspicion of favoring insurrection. His epaulets were nailed to his shoulders with spikes, he was suspended from the yard-arm of a vessel, while his wife and children, and four hundred of his black soldiers, were thrown over to the sharks before his eyes. The trees were hung with the corpses of negroes. Some were torn to pieces by bloodhounds trained for the purpose; some were burnt alive. Sixteen of Toussaint's bravest generals were chained by the neck to the rocks of an uninhabited island, and left there to perish. Most of these victims were firm in the midst of their tortures, and died with the precious word Freedom on their lips. A mother, whose daughters were going to be executed, said to them: "Be thankful. You will not live to be the mothers of slaves."

[81]

I am happy to record that all the whites were not destitute of feeling. Some sea-captains, who were ordered to take negroes out to sea and drown them, contrived to aid their escape to the mountains, or landed them on other shores.

The blacks, driven to desperation, became as cruel as their oppressors. They visited upon white men, women, and children all the barbarities they had seen and suffered. The wife of General Paul, brother of Toussaint, was dragged from her peaceful home, and drowned by French soldiers. This murder made him perfectly crazy with revenge. Though naturally of a mild disposition, he thenceforth had no mercy on anybody of white complexion. His old father, Gaou-Guinou, who survived Toussaint about a year, was filled with the same spirit,[82] and the last words he uttered were a malediction on the whites. The spirit of the infernal regions raged throughout all classes, and it was all owing to the wickedness of 

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