England sent an envoy to remonstrate against this signal and unprovoked rapacity: but the other powers suffered it to pass without any formal opposition.

The sufferings, however, of Aloys Reding and his brave associates, and this audacious crushing-down of the old spirit of Swiss freedom and independence, were heard of throughout all Europe with deep indignation.
Feelings of the same kind were nourished everywhere by the results of an expedition which Buonaparte sent, before the close of 1801, to St.
Domingo, for the purpose of reconquering that island to France.

The black and coloured population had risen, at the revolutionary period, upon their white masters, and, after scenes of terrible slaughter and devastation, emancipated themselves.

The chief authority was, by degrees, vested in Toussaint L'Ouverture, a negro, who, during the war, displayed the ferocity of a barbarian, but after its conclusion, won the applause and admiration of all men by the wisdom and humanity of his administration.

Conscious that, whenever peace should be restored in Europe, France would make efforts to recover her richest colony, Toussaint adopted measures likely to conciliate the exiled planters and the government of the mother country.