A black named Etienne Magny, was one of the ablest of Christophe’s generals; and though he had been secretary to the council of state that had raised the latter to the throne of Hayti, he had now become so dissatisfied with his work that nothing retained him to the standard of his king but the reflection that his family, whom he had left at Cape Henry, would be required to pay the forfeit of his defection with their heads. A body of black soldiers, who were upon the point of deserting to the army of Pétion, willing to give éclat to their defection by taking their commander with them, surrounded the tent of Magny by night, and communicated to him their intention. The black general hesitated not to express his willingness to accompany them; but he urged that tenderness for his family forbade an attempt which would doom them all to certain destruction. The black soldiers refused to yield to these considerations, and seizing upon Magny, they bore him off undressed, and without his arms, into the town. To preserve the lives of Magny’s family, Pétion treated him as a prisoner of war; and he remained at Port au Prince until the death of Christophe, when he was made the commander of the North under Boyer. Christophe, discouraged at his defeats, and enraged at the sweeping defections which were every day diminishing the numbers of his army, and strengthening the resources of his rival, now commenced his retreat towards the north, whence intelligence had lately reached him of designs in preparation against him among his own subjects. The army of the republic, under General Boyer, commenced a pursuit. The cause of Pétion seemed triumphant. Boyer pressed closely upon the rear of the royal army, and Christophe seemed on the point of losing all, when the cautious policy of Pétion restrained Boyer’s activity, and the republicans turned back from the pursuit. Christophe had been foiled in his great effort by Pétion and Borgella, and he now regarded the mulattoes with a hatred so deep and fiendlike, that nothing would satisfy the direness of his vengeance but the utter extermination of that race. A body of mulatto women of the town of Gonaives, who had sympathized with their brethren of Port au Prince in the struggle which the latter were maintaining against the power of Christophe, and with this communion of feeling had made prayers to the Virgin against the success of their king, became the first victims of the rage of Christophe against their race. They were marched out of the town, and all subjected to military execution, without a distinction in their punishment or consideration of mercy for their sex. Christophe had long ago resolved to rest the foundation of his power upon the support of the pure blacks, and he now determined to make his administration one of ceaseless hatred and persecution to the mulattoes.