2, 1802) to surrender, in a letter which conveyed expressions of much personal respect from Buonaparte.

The negro chief, justly apprehending insincerity, stood out and defended himself gallantly for a brief space; but stronghold after stronghold yielded to numbers and discipline; and at length he too submitted, on condition that he should be permitted to retire in safety to his plantation.

Some obscure rumours of insurrection were soon made the pretext for arresting him; and he, being put on board ship, and sent to France, was shut up in a dungeon, where either the midnight cord or dagger, or the wasting influence of confinement and hopeless misery, ere long put an end to his life.

His mysterious fate, both before and after its consummation, excited great interest.[43] The atrocious cruelty of the French soldiery, in their subjugation of St.
Domingo, equalled (it could not have surpassed) that of the barbarous negroes whom they opposed; but was heard of with disgust and horror, such as no excesses of mere savages could have excited.

As if Heaven had been moved by these bloody deeds of vengeance, disease broke out in the camp; thousands, and among them Leclerc himself, died.