est enthusiasm to defend, with their lives if need be, the liberty of the soil, of which they meant to remain the sole masters.
Napoleon's escape from Elba occurred just in time to thwart the plans of Louis XVIII. Yet upon the return of the Bourbons to power they once again took up the idea of retaking Haiti. In July, 1816, Lieutenant-General Viscount of Fontanges, the Councillor of State Esmangart, and Captain du Petit Thouars of the French Navy were appointed the King's Commissioners at Saint-Domingue. But they failed in their purpose, and the resistance offered them by both Christophe and Pétion left to them no other course of action but to return to France; consequently they sailed from Port-au-Prince on the 12th of November, 1816.[1] On the same day Pétion issued a proclamation to the people which read as follows: "Our rights are sacred; they have their source in nature which created all men equal. We will defend our rights against all those who will dare to think of subduing us. Our aggressors will find on this island ashes mingled with blood, bullets and an avengeful climate. Authority rests on your will; and your will is to be free and independent. You will be so or we will give to the world the awful spectacle of burying ourselves under the ruins of our country rather than submit again to servitude, even in its mildest form. … "
Christophe also issued a proclamation on the 20th of November, in the following terms: "We will negotiate with the French Government on equal footing, from Power to Power, from Sovereign to Sovereign. No negotiation will be entered upon with that country unless the independence of the kingdom of Haiti, political as well as commercial, be previously recog-
- ↑ On their arrival in France they tried to make believe that their failure was caused by the intrigues of Great Britain and the United States. In their report they charge the two countries with slandering France and making her odious to an ignorant people and with maintaining Pétion's distrust by continually telling him that France's only design was to place him and his whole race once more under the yoke of slavery. (B. Ardouin, Vol. VIII, p. 257.)
