The opposition blamed Lord Cornwallis for not having expressly inserted the usual clause, by which all previous treaties are maintained and confirmed, so far as they are not at variance with the last. " This omission was," they said, "an indirect ratification given to the abandonment made by Spain to France, agreeably to the treaty of Basle, of half of the island of St. Domingo. The silence of the treaty of Amiens, is, as it were, a confirmation of the union of Belgium with France, a union very dangerous to England, as the shores of that province are opposite the Thames, that is to say, of London itself. In a word, not to revive the former treaties, particularly those of Utrecht and Fontainebleau, is to put in question the rights of England to Nova Scotia, Canada and Cape Breton." Thus the English claimed the stipulations agreed on at Utrecht, while they, a few years afterwards, considered as abrogated the articles of the same treaty which had consecrated the rights of neutrality. The clamours on the subject of the cession of Louisiana to France were still more ardent. "It wounded essentially," it was said, "the interests of England. The ports which France was about to have at its disposition would afford facilities for her naval dépôts, and multiply the dangers of the English colonies, in case of war. Canada, which was adjacent to northern Louisiana, would be soon exposed to the attacks of the French. They would acquire over the United States an ascendency, which would, sooner or later, draw that republic into an alliance against the naval greatness of England, and the superi

ority of her flag. New Orleans was the key of Mexico: the two Americas ought to be alarmed at a change, which above all threatened the Spanish kingdoms of that great continent; and the cabinet of Madrid could only have consented to the treaty in obedience to force. If it had been known by the two houses of parliament, when the preliminaries were communicated to them, they would have paused before they approved them. But the ministers were acquainted with it before signing the definitive treaty, and they were inexcusable for not having considered it an obstacle to making peace."

Lord Hawkesbury conceived that he ought to give explanations, and his answer deserves to be reported. "To judge of the value of Louisiana in the hands of the French," said he, "let us recollect that they have heretofore possessed it for a long period, without being able to render it prosperous; though they, at the very same time, derived great advantages from their insular colonies. As to the United States, this transfer does not expose them to any danger. I have too high an idea of their power and resources, to entertain any fears for them on account of their new neighbours. Were it, however, otherwise, their alarms could but lead them to unite more closely with us."

This minister also uttered these other words, so extraordinary in the mouth of a statesman: "We only wished to make an experimental peace." Lord Hawkesbury thus expressed himself, immediately after the signature of a treaty, all the articles of which both parties had promised to execute with sincerity and good faith. Such words sometimes escape from a speaker, who, in his desire to please, forgets that they will be echoed elsewhere than in the chamber which he is addressing. However, the explosion of public discontent in England did not long permit the first consul to deceive himself. He could from thenceforth judge of the effect which would be produced by a knowledge of the design that he entertained of securing to France commercial advantages in America, and of creating for her great maritime interests.

The treaties of peace, which he dictated as a consequence of his victories, left him alone formidable in Europe, and it depended on him to execute them at his pleasure, whilst he could prescribe a mute obedience. to the other powers: this unnatural situation could only last so long as they were in no condition to change it. But Napoleon, who did not then foresee the near return of war, but was, on the contrary, drawn by his disposition to the adoption of prompt and decisive measures, thought that he ought to proceed without delay to the execution of the plan that he had formed. It consisted in first subjecting the revolted colony, by sending there such considerable forces that he might be justified in regarding success as infallible. After the reduction of the rebels, a part of the army was to be conveyed to Louisiana.

The events, of which St. Domingo was then the bloody theatre, are closely connected with the history of the treaty of cession. We shall therefore anticipate the course of the principal narrative, and state summarily the issue of the expedition, which had for its object the re-establishment of the French sovereignty in that island.

At the end of the last century, and after the frightful catastrophes that resulted from a manumission imprudently proclaimed, order had begun to be re-established in that fine colony. But ambition soon after induced a black man and a mulatto to take up arms, and the rivalry of these two men kindled anew a civil war, which the mother country had not excited, but which she probably witnessed without dissatisfaction.

The two factions and their chiefs were equally ardent in the profession of attachment to France, and it was difficult to refuse credence to their declarations; for they had both equally contributed to the expulsion of the English. But the character of their fidelity was affected by the difference of their casts. Rigaud, a free born mulatto, had wished, while he restored the colony to France, to maintain slavery, and to keep for his party the plantations conquered from the whites, who had emigrated or been allies of our enemies. He united with a remarkable capacity the advantage of an excellent education. He had become chief of all the people of colour, who were born free or had been manumitted before the revolution. These men, for the most part owners of blacks, refused to obey the laws of the convention, which, by proclaiming the abolition of slavery, only left them land without value, for they did not conceive the possibility of its being cultivated in any other manner than by slaves.

Liberty, moreover, appeared to them to be less precious, since the multitude were admitted to enjoy it in the same manner with themselves. This chief commanded, in the south of the island, an army composed of about six thousand mulattoes and blacks, and a few whites. This band was very much attached to him; but a feeling of hatred, which was sometimes open and declared, and at others secret and dissembled, divided the mulattoes and blacks, even though they followed, whilst under his orders, the same standard. Touissaint-Louverture, a black, and formerly a slave, commanded at the Cape and in all the northern and central parts of the colony. He had recalled the former proprietors who had emigrated, had protected them and restored their lands, with the exception of a few plantations that had been seized on by his friends and himself. But he had only exhibited this generosity in tranquil times. He acted very differently in war, and being persuaded that it was necessary to carry it on without mercy, when the sword is once drawn, he pushed his success without giving his adversaries any intermission, and if he met with a reverse, he revenged it by fire and plunder. His enemies accused him of hypocrisy and dissimulation. He was, they said, coldly cruel, and the extermination of the whites formed part of his plan for rendering the colony independent. His partisans made him a hero and a statesman.

Touissaint may be more impartially judged from a view of his life. Obliged in his infancy to obey as a slave, unexpected events suddenly made him the equal