On the 1st day of July, 1801, a Declaration of Independence was made by Toussaint, in the name of the people. The ancient proprietors of plantations, who in the former insurrections had been compelled to quit the island and seek an asylum in France, soon found in this act of independence a confirmation of their former suspicions. They saw that all their valuable possessions must be inevitably lost, and that forever, unless government could be prevailed on to send an armed force to crush at once a revolt which had become so formidable as to assume independence. The complicated interests of commerce were instantly alarmed and awakened to action; powerful parties were formed; a horde of venal writers started immediately into notice; a change was wrought in the public sentiment as by the power of magic; and negro emancipation was treated in just the same manner that negro slavery had been treated before. Such was the fickleness of the French at that time, and such is the inconstancy of the human mind in ours. Bonaparte, aiming himself at uncontrolled dominion, found it necessary to bribe all parties with gratifying promises to induce them to favor his views, and to enable him to introduce such changes in the form of government as he desired. The transitory peace which had taken place in Europe produced at this time a band of desperate adventurers, who, destitute of employment, were ready for any enterprise that could afford them an opportunity to distinguish themselves. Accordingly an expedition of 26,000 men was fitted out, at the head of which was placed General le Clerc;[F] and such was the confidence of its success, that he was accompanied by his wife, (sister to Napoleon,) and her younger brother Jerome Bonaparte. But it was not to the fleet and army that Napoleon trusted exclusively for success. A number of plotting emissaries had been secretly dispatched to tamper with the unsuspecting blacks, to sow the seeds of discord between parties, and to shake their confidence in Toussaint. Even Toussaint’s children had been prepared, by the deceitful caresses of the First Consul, to assist, by their representation of his conduct towards them, in the seduction of their father. Le Clerc with his detachment of the French squadron, appeared off Cape François on the 5th day of January, 1802. General Christophe, who, during the absence of Toussaint, held the command, on perceiving the approach of the French fleet, immediately dispatched one of his officers to inform the commander of the squadron of Toussaint’s absence, and to assure him he could not permit any troops to land until he had heard from the General-in-Chief. “That in case the direction of the expedition should persist in the disembarkation of his forces without permission, he should consider the white inhabitants in his district as hostages for his conduct, and, in consequence of any attack, the place attacked would be immediately consigned to the flames.”