t
these were pardonable in the difficult circumstances which had pressed
on Toussaint: he was now, however, invited to amend them so as to
recognize the complete sovereignty of the motherland and the authority
of General Leclerc, whom Bonaparte sent out as captain-general of the
island. To this officer, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, the First
Consul wrote on the same day that there was reported to be much
ferment in the island against Toussaint, that the obstacles to be
overcome would therefore be much less formidable than had been feared,
provided that activity and firmness were used. In his references to
the burning topic of slavery, the First Consul showed a similar
reserve. The French Republic having abolished it, he could not, as
yet, openly restore an institution flagrantly opposed to the Rights of
Man. Ostensibly therefore he figured as the champion of emancipation,
assuring the Haytians in his proclamation of November 8th, 1801, that
they were all free and all equal in the sight of God and of the
French Republic: "If you are told, 'These forces are destined to
snatch your liberty from you,' reply, 'The Republic has given us our
liberty: it will not allow it to be taken from us.'" Of a similar
tenor was his public declaration a fortnight later, that at St.
Domingo and Guadeloupe everybody was free and would remain free. Very
different were his private instructions. On the last day of October he
ordered Talleyrand to write to the British Government, asking for
their help in supplying provisions from Jamaica to this expedition
destined to "destroy the new Algiers being organized in American
waters"; and a fortnight later he charged him to state his resolve to
destroy the government of the blacks at St. Domingo; that if he had to
postpone the expedition for a year, he would be "obliged to constitute
the blacks as French"; and that "the liberty of the blacks, if
recognized by the Government, would always be a support for the
Republic in the New World." As he was striving to cajole our
Government into supporting his expedition, it is clear that in the
last enigmatic phrase he was bidding for that support by the hint of a
prospective restoration of slavery at St. Domingo. A comparison of his
public and private statements must have produced a curious effect on
the British Ministers, and many of the difficulties during the
negotiations at Amiens doubtless sprang out of their knowledge of his
double-dealing in the Wes