Among
these soldiers came all of Toussaint's old mulatto rivals and foes.
* * * * *
Mounting his horse, and riding to the eastern end of the island, Samana,
he looked out on a sight such as no native had ever seen before. Sixty
ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers of Europe, rounded the
point. They were soldiers who had never yet met an equal, whose tread,
like Caesar's, had shaken Europe,--soldiers who had scaled the Pyramids,
and planted the French banners on the walls of Rome. He looked a moment,
counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, and,
turning to Christophe, exclaimed: "All France is come to Hayti; they can
only come to make us slaves; and we are lost." He then recognized the
only mistake of his life,--his confidence in Bonaparte, which had led
him to disband his army. Returning to the hills, he issued the only
proclamation which bears his name and breathes vengeance: "My children,
France comes to make us slaves. God gave us liberty; France has no right
to take it away. Burn the cities, destroy the harvests, tear up the
roads with cannon, poison the wells, show the white man the hell he
comes to make"; and he was obeyed. When the great William of Orange saw
Louis XIV.
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