This history will, for a short time, be more simple. Toussaint has filled the “Opening;” he is “Louverture.” A strong hand and a clear head, though black, direct the affairs of the island. Daily he gains strength, and the confidence of the negroes. They flock to his army—they listen and obey his words. Christophe, in the North, had encouraged cultivation. Toussaint throws his powerful influence into the work—his maxim, “that the liberty of the blacks can never be solid without agriculture,”[38] passes from mouth to mouth among the negroes, and rouses in them the desire for lands and wealth—for the _first time_ now possible. He wishes that Cap and the towns along the North should be rebuilt. It is done; they rise from their ashes. All hopes are centered in the General-in-chief: HE can restore peace and prosperity: he alone.[39] The English now were sore bested. The French pressed them in the West; Desfourneaux in the North; Rigaud in the South; Christophe had carried the heights of Vallière, the Vendée of St. Domingo. Louverture again attempts to take St. Marc: thrice he storms it, thrice he deserves success; but again he fails to clutch this strong fortress. He turns now to Mirebelais, an interior Thermopylæ, strongly fortified by the English: his lieutenant, Mornay, intercepted Montalembert, who was advancing with 700 men and two pieces of artillery. The next day he drives in all the English troops, invests the village of St. Louis, carries the forts by assault, and in fourteen days totally defeats the English, taking 200 prisoners, eleven pieces of cannon, and military stores. The efforts of the English are nearly at an end—weak and weary, their strength is spent. Whitlocke, Williamson, Whyte, Horneck, Brisbane, and Markham, have tried to subdue these rebels and to wrest the colony from France: they have bitten a file. Millions of pounds have been wasted; Brisbane and Markham are killed; thousands of soldiers slain; the yellow fever, too, has done its work. Poor fellows! The “bloody ichor” has been bloody tears. “Condemned to fall without a conflict, and to die without renown!”[40] If the ghosts of the dead hover about us, as some love to think, heavy must be the air of St. Domingo—pale shades of black and white still carrying on their conflict, or sighing over the past.