Toussaint put forth a proclamation to the colored people, in which he said: “You are now to meet and fight enemies who have neither faith, law, nor religion. Let us resolve that these French troops shall never leave our shores alive.” The war commenced, and the blacks were victorious in nearly all the battles. Where the French gained a victory, they put their prisoners to the most excruciating tortures; in many instances burning them in pits, and throwing them into boiling chaldrons. This example of cruelty set by the whites, was followed by the blacks. Then it was that Dessalines, the ferocious chief, satisfied his long pent-up revenge against the white planters and French soldiers that he made prisoners. The French general saw that he could gain nothing from the blacks on the field of battle, and he determined upon a stratagem, in which he succeeded too well. A correspondence was opened with Toussaint in which the captain-general promised to acknowledge the liberty of the blacks, and the equality of all, if he would yield. Overcome by the persuasions of his generals, and the blacks who surrounded him, and who were sick and tired of the shedding of blood, Toussaint gave in his adhesion to the French authorities. This was the great error of his life. The loss that the French army had sustained during the war, was great. Fifteen thousand of their best troops, and some of their bravest generals, had fallen before the arms of these Negroes, whom they despised. Soon after Toussaint gave in his adhesion, the yellow fever broke out in the French army, and carried off nearly all of the remaining great men,--more than seven hundred medical men, besides twenty-two thousand sailors and soldiers. Among these were fifteen hundred officers. It was at this time that Toussaint might have renewed the war with great success. But he was a man of his word, and would not take the advantage of the sad condition of the French army. Although peace reigned, Le Clerc was still afraid of Toussaint; and by the advice of Napoleon, the black general was arrested, together with his family, and sent to France. The great chief of St. Domingo had scarcely been conveyed on board the ship Creole, and she out of the harbor, ere Rigaud, the mulatto general who had accompanied Le Clerc to St. Domingo, was arrested, put in chains, and sent to France. The seizure of Toussaint and Rigaud caused suspicion and alarm among both blacks and mulattoes, and that induced them to raise again the flag of insurrection, in which the two proscribed classes were united.