And now we come to the war of the French Revolution, when Pitt thought to compel France to submission by taking all her colonies and depriving her of all colonial produce, whether as a luxury or as a source of revenue. France had but three islands to windward, Martinique, Guadeloupe and St Lucia and to leeward the western end of St Domingo, called Haiti; but all were flourishing settlements; and Haiti was considered the richest possession in the world, its produce being valued at four millions annually. All three had been shaken, and Haiti half-ruined, by the doctrines of the National Assembly, which had not only abolished slavery, but preached the doctrine of equality among all men to such effect that the negroes had risen and either massacred or driven out two-thirds of the whites. In the hope of restoring order and regaining their wealth the remainder of the whites invited the General at Jamaica to occupy their territory, an offer at which that officer grasped eagerly, knowing by reputation the wealth of the place. Shortly afterwards at the end of 1793, but two months too late, Pitt sent seven thousand troops under General Grey and a fleet under Sir John Jervis, better known as Lord St Vincent, to capture the French Windward islands. The two commanders were excellent men in their professions, and on affectionate terms with each other. Their operations prospered. The three islands were taken after two months hard work; and then with the coming of the unhealthy season the men began to die. Emissaries, one of them a West Indian mulatto of great energy and ability, arrived from France with arms and reinforcements, proclaimed the equality of all men, and stirred up the negroes to root the English out. The negroes responded; and not in the French islands only, but in all that had ever been French, they rose in insurrection against the whites. Meanwhile Pitt had sent the British regiments no reinforcements, no stores, no clothing; and they had now a most formidable task before them. It was no longer a case of meeting white men of like weakness and disabilities with themselves, but of contending with black men to whom the climate was favourable and who knew every inch of the country.