Toussaint determines to drive away the English, and he falls with fury upon General Brisbane in the Artibonite, and compels him to retreat. But Jean François hung over him in the heights of La Grande Rivière. Again he retires to Dondon and organizes his forces to repel the Spaniards—in four days he takes and destroys twenty-eight positions—but Jean François with a superior force threatens his rear, while the English are in front: again he is baffled; he returns to Dondon. Toussaint is no longer the leader of marauding bands, but the head of an army. His troops are mostly raw and ignorant, badly clothed, armed, and fed, but they trust in him and have courage. He seeks for efficient officers, and finds Dessalines, Desroulaux, Maurepas, Clervaux, Christophe and Lamartinière: these he must command with discretion—his troops he must provide with arms, ammunition and food—he must watch the forces of the Spaniards, the movements of the English—intrigues abroad and treachery at home: henceforth he must organize campaigns. He has now little time for the pleasures of sense—the enjoyment of books—the rest of home. Rarely can he snatch an hour for his wife and children from the life of ceaseless care. But does he, then, sigh for the hut and the bananas and the careless slavery of M. Bayou? Human nature is one; no one would have changed the life of a man, every faculty in action, for the repose of a dog: not the black Toussaint. The treaty of Basle had secured the cession of the whole Spanish part of the island to France. Jean François was, therefore, at liberty to retire to Spain, to enjoy his honors. There remained but the English now to distract the plans of Toussaint and the French. One more disturbing element yet existed. The mulattoes felt themselves superior to the blacks, and the rightful successors to the whites, in the honors and government of the island. Jealous of Toussaint and the favors shown the blacks, headed by Villate, they rose against Laveaux, the governor at the Cape, and threw him into prison; his danger was extreme.[34] Toussaint descends on the town with ten thousand blacks and saves him. Laveaux appointed him his lieutenant, second in command in the island, and declared that he was the “Spartacus” foretold by Raynal, who should avenge the sufferings of his race.[35] Confidence grew now, between the blacks and the whites, and Lacroix, who is no way friendly to the blacks, admits that “if St. Domingo still carried the colors of France, it was solely owing to an old negro who seemed to bear a commission from Heaven.”[36] The French continued to send commissioners (Santhonax among them), but Toussaint was the moving mind; and when Laveaux, having been elected delegate to the Assembly, sailed for France, Santhonax finally appointed him Commander-in-chief.[37]