disputes at last swelled into civil war--and the party who preferred the
old constitution, being headed by the gallant Aloys Reding, were
generally successful. Napoleon, who had fomented their quarrel, now,
unasked and unexpected, assumed to himself the character of arbiter
between the contending parties. He addressed a letter to the eighteen
cantons, in which these words occur:--"Your history shows that your
intestine wars cannot be terminated, except through the intervention of
France. I had, it is true, resolved not to intermeddle in your
affairs--but I cannot remain insensible to the distress of which I see
you the prey--I recall my resolution of neutrality--I _consent_ to be
the mediator in your differences." Rapp, adjutant-general, was the
bearer of this insolent manifesto. To cut short all discussion, Ney
entered Switzerland at the head of 40,000 troops. Resistance was
hopeless. Aloys Reding dismissed his brave followers, was arrested, and
imprisoned in the castle of Aarburg. The government was arranged
according to the good pleasure of Napoleon, who henceforth added to his
other titles that of "Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Republic."
Switzerland was, in effect, degraded into a province of France; and
became bound to maintain an army of 16,000 men, who were to be at the
disposal, whenever it should please him to require their aid, of the
Grand Mediator. England sent an envoy to remonstrate against this signal
and unprovoked rapacity: but the other powers suffered it to pass
without any formal opposition. The sufferings, however, of Aloys Reding
and his brave associates, and this audacious crushing-down of the old
spirit of Swiss freedom and independence, were heard of throughout all
Europe with deep indignation.

Feelings of the same kind were nourished everywhere by the results of an
expedition which Buonaparte sent, before the close of 1801, to St.
Domingo, for the purpose of reconquering that island to France. The
black and coloured population had risen, at the revolutionary period,
upon their white masters, and, after scenes of terrible slaughter and
devastation, emancipated themselves. The chief authority was, by
degrees, vested in Toussaint L'Ouverture, a negro, who, during the war,
displayed the ferocity of a barbarian, but after its conclusion, won the
applause and admiration of all men by the wisdom and humanity of his
administration. Conscious that, whenever peace should be restored in
Europe, France