Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [126]
Though he had now taken control of Spanish Santo Domingo, his troops there were thinly spread, and this eastern area of Hispaniola remained the most likely point for an invasion. Toussaint embarked on a tour of his positions there, but he had not gone very far before he was overtaken by messengers from General Christophe, warning him that French warships had been sighted. He hastened to Point Samana, the easternmost extremity of the island, expecting that the fleet would make its first landfall there.
There were sixty-seven ships in all, and when Toussaint got his first sight of them from the rocky heights of Point Samana, he quailed for an instant. “We'll all have to die,” he told his officers. “All France has come to Saint Domingue.51 He may have meant the last part literally. French Saint Domingue was approximately the size of Vermont, and Toussaint, who had spent his whole life on the island, had no way of conceiving just how big France really was. But he had known that the fleet was almost certain to come, and for months he had been making ready to meet it. Within minutes he had recovered his fortitude and was dispatching messengers to activate the defense.
During the Atlantic crossing, the squadrons of the French fleet had been scattered by storms. A couple of these were waiting off Point Samana by the time Leclerc himself arrived there. Though other ships were yet to come, the captain general knew that he must have been observed and did not want to give Toussaint too long to prepare his response. The fleet moved clockwise around the island, detaching forces to occupy various points along the way.
Vincents extremely detailed campaign plan had less influence than the grand strategy which had been designed in advance by Napoleon: General Kerverseau was to land at Ciudad Santo Domingo, General Darbois on the south coast of the Grande Anse, and General Boudet at Port-au-Prince. On February 2, Leclerc's own squadron appeared at the mouth of the Cap Francais harbor. A smaller squadron carrying General Donatien Rochambeau and the troops of his command sailed on to Fort Liberte.
Notwithstanding their reputations for military success, both Napoleon Bonaparte and Toussaint Louverture preferred to settle conflicts by diplomacy if possible; neither liked to spend men and materiel for nothing, and both preached against useless bloodshed (with some real sincerity). Leclerc's instructions were to try the diplomatic route first. He had been furnished with proclamations from Napoleon insist-ing that the French army had arrived to defend and guarantee the freedom of the blacks—not, as everyone suspected, to restore slavery.
Coisnon, with Isaac and Placide Louverture, was supposed to have been transferred to a small, fast boat that would have put him in Saint Domingue several days ahead of the main fleet. He would have delivered reassuring communications from Napoleon, including a letter from the first consul to Toussaint. Vincent wrote a letter of introduction intended to serve as a safe-conduct for Coisnon anywhere in the colony, addressed to whomever it might concern but full of beguiling references to the general in chief (for Vincent suspected that Coisnon would have trouble meeting in person with Toussaint, who might prefer to deal with him through cat's-paws like Christophe). If possible, the priest was also meant to deliver Vincent's letters to Toussaint, Christophe, Moyse, and the Frenchmen in Toussaint's inner circle. Coisnon had the most delicate task of persuading Toussaint