With a few attendants Toussaint goes. The day is fine—Brunet and his companions charming. They confer as to the troops, they go over the maps; Toussaint is himself again; he knows the country thoroughly and the wants of the inhabitants—is ready and proud to do what is in his power to suit their wants, and the requirements of the General. The shades of evening draw on—Brunet leaves the room. Colonel Ferrari enters it with twenty men, with swords drawn. He says: “The Captain General has given me orders to arrest you; your guards are overpowered; if you resist, you are a dead man: give me your sword!”[63] The deed was done! ’Twas a wicked one in the annals of dynasties and despotisms. No earthquake yawned, no thunderbolt came down—yet the deed was not forgotten nor unexpiated. Toussaint was hurried aboard the frigate Hero, shut up from his family, who were also prisoners, and sent from the home and the island he knew and loved so well. He stands in his manacles on the deck of the ship, and as she slowly parts from the island, he says: “They have in me struck down but the trunk of the tree; the roots are many and deep, they will shoot up again!”[64] These were his last words! But he might in his destruction have thus recorded his accusation, before the throne of God, and in the face of men:— 1. I charge—That you white man, with no orders from God, stole the black man from Africa and subjected him to labor, to tyranny, and to the lash—for _your_ ends, not for _his_ benefit. 2. I charge—That for centuries you made a beast of him, and when he turned in desperation and rent you, you wondered that he was a beast. 3. I charge—That you have ever denied him all chance for improvement, all chance to be a MAN. 4. I charge—That when I, Toussaint Louverture, “with a commission from Heaven,” triumphantly vindicated his manhood and mine, you ruthlessly trampled him and me down again into degradation and ruin. 5. I charge—That the misery, the blood and the “horror” of St. Domingo lie at your door, white man, for you sinned knowingly and willfully. 6. I charge—That you, white man—not God!—are the father and defender of Slavery, that you disgraced your Bible, corrupted your State, and depraved your soul to sustain and continue this great wrong towards me, and to entail unknown misery upon your children and the world. FOOTNOTES: [62] Brunet was what is called a gentleman, and had been baptized. [63] LACROIX, v. ii., p. 203. [64] The French have charged that, at that time, Toussaint was deep in plots for their destruction. If he had been, he would not thus have been trapped. This fact answers them. XIX.