General Galbaud, a new governor, arrived from France in May, (1793). The Commissioners were engaged in the west, in fighting Rigaud. They returned to Cap François to fight the governor, whose authority they disputed. Galbaud held the ships and the arsenals, and determined to assert his authority. His soldiers and sailors entered the town and abandoned themselves to drunkenness, pillage, and brutality. (21st June, 1793). The Commissioners armed the slaves in the town, promised them freedom, and sent for aid to the negro generals. Jean François and Biassou refused; but a chief, Macayo, at the head of three thousand blacks, entered the town, and the conflict raged—the whites were driven into the sea and slaughtered. Madness ruled—none were fiercer than the mulattoes. Galbaud fled, and half the city was destroyed by fire. At last—for a while—the whites gave up the hope of recovering their slaves. Thousand fled (some suppose nine-tenths),[29] and found refuge along the American coasts. Gentlemen they mostly were, certainly, (as far as their back teeth), but quite useless, a spectacle to gods and men, of those who, having lived so long on the forced labor of others, must now live on charity or die. Famine had more than once increased the misery during these three years—yet the island was fruitful, and cultivation, here and there, went on. The sagacious Jean François had initiated cultivation along the mountain-sides, and among their valleys; and he enforced it. He thus secured an unfailing magazine. Rarely the songs of labor now were heard, those sounds with which the negroes are wont to lighten their weariness. Small parties were to be seen at work; but no man’s life was safe, nor was he secure of the produce of his labor; and the men and women scattered like frightened partridges at the tramp of feet. They lay hidden among the canes, or in the ravines, till the danger passed. FOOTNOTES: [29] EDWARDS, p. 153. VII.