Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [129]
LeClerc's Attack on Cap Francais, February 4—6, 1802
“Old Toussaint s” strategy for resistance and his explicit orders in the first days of the invasion were close to what Page and Christophe described. Though his army was well-seasoned, determined, and confi-dent, he was indeed wary of risking it in the open field against veterans of the Napoleonic wars in Europe. His preference was to deny terrain to the enemy by destroying the towns on the coast and scorching the earth of the lowlands, then to fight a war of attrition from the mountains until the invasion buckled under its own weight (as Page had predicted it must). Toussaint had seen what the fever season had done to the unacclimated English invaders and had nothing against letting disease do as much of his work as possible. A February 7 letter to Dessalines put it vividly: “Do not forget that while waiting for the rainy season, which must rid us of our enemies, we have no recourse but destruction and fire. Consider that the land bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies the least nourishment. Jam up all the roads, throw horses and corpses into all the springs; have everything burned and annihilated, so that those who come to return us to slavery will always have before them the image of the hell that they deserve.'58
Dessalines was supposed to burn Port-au-Prince, and Toussaint had sent similar orders to his other commanders all over the colony, but the first French movements were so swift, determined, and effective that many of his messengers were intercepted. The courier to Paul Louverture in Ciudad Santo Domingo had actually been given two letters, a false one directing him to receive the French and a true one commanding him to destroy the town and retreat. The French picked off this courier, presented the false letter, and occupied Santo Domingo without firing a shot. In Santiago to the north, the priest Mauviel had been rusticating since Toussaint changed his mind about installing him as bishop of the Le Cap cathedral. He persuaded Santiago's mulatto commander, Clervaux, to yield to the French without a struggle. Thus Toussaint almost immediately lost all the key points he had been at such pains to secure in the Spanish part of the island.
In the west, there were other disasters. Dommage, a trusted commander at Jeremie, failed to receive Toussaint's dispatch. Persuaded by Napoleon's proclamation,* he turned over the town to the French and gave them a firm foothold on the Grande Anse. Laplume, who was similarly seduced and may also have been disaffected since the suppression of the Moyse rebellion, disobeyed the order to burn Les Cayes and the surrounding area, and instead offered his services to the French.
When Toussaint launched his couriers from Point Samana, Des-salines was absent from Port-au-Prince. In his place the white General Age commanded, at least in name—a local cynic reported that Age was constantly drunk and knew more about houses where he could get free libations than he did about his own officer corps. When General Boudet landed his messengers, Age secretly let them know that he had no real power in the situation; actual authority lay with his nominal subordinate, the mulatto Lamartiniere. It was Lamartiniere who arrested Boudet's messengers, who were held as hostages for the next several weeks.
Misled by pride in his arms, Lamartiniere thought he could hold the town without burning it. A couple of days' temporizing gave Boudet time to organize a successful attack on February 5, the day after the forced landing at Le Cap. Lamartiniere had threatened to massacre the white population if Boudet tried to fight his way ashore, but about half of them