This was the beginning of the end at Hayti. Ministers, in despair of pacifying that racial cauldron, now looked on the Spanish colonies as an easier prize. Dundas therefore ordered Abercromby to capture Porto Rico or Trinidad; and he even dallied with a fantastic scheme for shipping the Haytian colonists to Porto Rico. Abercromby, however, who again set sail from Portsmouth in November 1796, decided to make for Trinidad, and by a brilliant stroke captured its capital, Port of Spain. The attack on San Juan, in Porto Rico, met with unexpected difficulties, and ended in failure (February and April 1797). Matters now became desperate in Hayti. The rebels captured several posts near Port-au-Prince, largely owing to dissensions among the defenders. Simcoe, despite a serious illness on his way out, worked miracles with his skeleton regiments, but both he and his subordinates failed to cut down expenses as the Cabinet demanded. Accordingly, on 9th June 1797, Portland and Dundas reminded him that no further reinforcements could be sent out, and added this ominous sentence: "It is but too obvious that ... the immense sacrifices this country has made for the protection of the French part of San Domingo have too frequently been diverted from purposes of public utility to answer the worst ends of private peculation and inordinate cupidity." In a recent debate in the House of Commons St. John assessed the expenses of Hayti for January 1797 at L700,000; and stated that, for the discharge of judicial duties, a Frenchman was receiving L2,500 a year, which he was now squandering in London. Pitt remained silent. Dundas did not deny these allegations, but begged members to recollect the great difficulties of our officials in Hayti.[395] This was undeniable. It is the curse of a policy of retirement that waverers haste to leave betimes with all the spoils obtainable. The signs of abandonment of Hayti caused a stampede, demoralizing to all concerned. On 1st January 1798, Portland and Dundas penned the order for the evacuation of Hayti, owing to the impossibility of making good the loss of troops or of recruiting in the island. After dwelling on the impossibility of reducing the expenditure to the requisite amount, Ministers explained that they had deferred the evacuation of Hayti "as long as the negotiation which His Majesty had opened with the enemy at Lille, and the disposition of a majority in the two Councils of Legislature in France, left a hope that some immediate arrangement might be made with that country, which in its consequences might operate to relieve England from the intolerable burdens by which the British part of St. Domingo is retained, and to a certain degree to ensure to its inhabitants a continuance of security and protection.... The rupture of the negotiation and the avowed system of the present Government of France appear on the one hand to render the attainment of this desirable end precarious, if not remote, whilst on