were masters of the battlefield. During the day the French had taken about 1,500 prisoners in the camp of the blacks. The French General ordered that the unfortunate native soldiers be at once put to death. A great number of the victims of this cruelty did not die immediately; they were left in a mutilated state too horrible to be described. Their agonizing cries and groans broke the silence of the night; they could be heard at a great distance."[1]
Rochambeau's cruelty became so revolting that two of his companions, the French Generals Clauzel and Thouvenot, thought of securing "the person of this madman and of sending him to Europe in order to rid the colony of his presence."[2] But the Captain-General discovered the conspiracy, the authors of which
- ↑ Here is the statement made by Marcus Rainsford, late Captain of the Third West India Regiment (An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti; London, 1805), of the affair of L'Acul (pp. 336-338):
"Rochambeau began the attack with impetuosity, and the blacks for a short time gave way, but on his endeavoring to push the advantage, they repulsed him with loss, when the day closed. In penetrating the black line the French had secured a number of prisoners, and on them they determined to wreak the vengeance of which they were disappointed in the battle. Whether this determination arose from an idea that the part of the French wing which had been cut off were already absolutely sacrificed, or from the mistaken policy of extermination, cannot here be determined, but the unhappy victims were, without the smallest consideration for their own men who were prisoners in the black camp, immediately put to death. As they were not carefully exterminated, many were left in a mutilated state during the whole of the night, whose moans and shrieks were heard at a distance around the spot sufficiently loud to excite a sensation of horror throughout the country. The black commander, when acquainted with the case, although the maxim of the benevolent Toussaint, not to retaliate, had been hitherto followed up, could no longer forbear; he immediately caused a number of gibbets to be formed, selected the officers whom he had taken, and supplying the deficiency with privates, had them tied up in every direction by break of day, in sight of the French camp, who dared not to interfere. The blacks then sallied forth with the most astonishing vigor and regularity, raised the very camp, threw the whole line in disorder, and drove the French army close to the walls of Cap-Français. Such was the retaliation produced by this sanguinary measure; a retaliation the justice of which, however it is lamented, cannot be called in question." James Franklin (The Present State of Haiti: London, 1828) confirms Rainsford's statement. - ↑ Gastonnet des Fosses, La perte d'une colonie, p. 339.
