Cordial relations existing between France and Spain in 1685, tentative boundary agreements were made between the French and Spanish authorities, but each side accused the other of violations and the strife continued as before. When in 1689, war broke out between Spain and France, the French governor organized an expedition to invade the Spanish section. He reached Santiago where some of his men died after consuming meat and wine found in the deserted houses. Believing them poisoned, he ordered the torch to be applied to the city and retired after seeing it reduced to ashes. Admiral Perez Caro, the Spanish governor, thereupon made preparations for a telling blow on the French. The colony's militia and regular troops sent by the viceroy of Mexico invaded the French section and on January 21, 1692, administered a crushing defeat on the opposing force in the plain of La Limonade, killing the French governor and his principal officers. The victorious army marched through the French settlements, desolating the fields and putting all prisoners to the sword. At the same time a new settlement the French had made at Samana was exterminated. The new French governor found the affairs of his colony in very bad condition; but with the assistance of refugees from other islands he sent an expedition to Jamaica, from where over 3,000 slaves together with stores of indigo and other property were carried off. In retaliation the English and Spanish fleets combined and with 4,000 men aboard set sail from Manzanillo Bay in 1695, and sacked and burned Cape Francais and Port-de-Paix, the English carrying off all the men they took prisoners and the Spaniards the women and children. Hostilities were ended in 1697 by the peace of Ryswick by which Spain recovered territory conquered from her by the French and ceded the western part of the island of Santo Domingo to France. The occupation of the western coast by France, so long resented as an intrusion, was thus formally recognized. The French colony immediately entered upon an era of prosperity which soon made it the richest country of the West Indies. Great plantations of tobacco, indigo, cacao, coffee and sugar were established. The country came to be known as the paradise of the West Indies and the wealth of the planters became proverbial. The grave defect was that this prosperity was built on the false foundation of slavery. In 1754 the population numbered 14,000 whites, 4000 free mulattoes and 172,000 negroes.