These
Islands Were Restored To Her Under The Treaty Of Amiens; Were Once More
Captured By The British In 1809 To 1810; And Were Finally Handed Back To
France Under The Treaty Of Paris In 1814.
Tobago and St. Lucia, taken
from France in 1803, were not restored.
The large island of San Domingo (the present republic of Haiti, the
Espanola of Columbus, and the first seat of European colonisation in the
west) had been occupied by French, Spanish, and British planters prior to
1796. The French had been there officially since Richelieu recognised and
protected the settlements made by filibusters early in the seventeenth
century. The decree of the revolutionary Assembly freeing the slaves in
all French possessions led to widespread insurrections. There were scenes
of frightful outrage; and above the storm of blood and horror rose to
fame the huge figure of the black hero, Toussaint L'Ouverture. At the
head of a negro army he at first assisted the French to overturn Spanish
rule; but having attained great personal power, and being a man of
astonishing capacity for controlling the people of his own race, and for
mastering military and governmental problems, he determined to use the
opportunity to found an autonomous state under the suzerainty of France.
By January 1801 Toussaint L'Ouverture was in possession of the capital.
But Bonaparte would not tolerate the domination of the black conqueror,
and despatched an expedition to San Domingo to overthrow his government
and establish French paramountcy. The result was disastrous. It is true
that Toussaint was captured and exiled to France, where he died miserably
in prison at Besancon in 1803; but the white troops under General Leclerc
perished of yellow fever in hundreds; the blacks retired to the mountains
and harassed the suffering French; whilst the vigilance of British
frigates, and the requirements of European policy, obviated all
possibility of effective reinforcements being sent. Gallic authority in
San Domingo ended ingloriously, for the negroes in 1803 drove the
debilitated chivalry of France in defeat and disaster to the sea, and
chose to be their ruler one who, like themselves, had commenced life as a
slave. Napoleon said at St. Helena that his attempt to subjugate San
Domingo was the greatest folly of his life.
In the Indian Ocean the French possessed the Isle of France (now, as a
British colony, called Mauritius) and Reunion. They had not yet
established themselves in Madagascar, though there was some trade between
the Mascareignes and the colonists of the Isle of France. Bonaparte
during the Consulate contemplated making definite attempts to colonise
Madagascar, and, early in 1801, called for a report from his first
colonial minister, Forfait. When he obtained the document, he sent it
back asking for more details, an indication that his interest in the
subject was more than one of transient curiosity. Forfait suggested the
project of establishing at Madagascar a penal colony such as the British
had at Port Jackson;* (* Prentout, L'Ile de France sous Decaen, 302.) but
subsequent events did not favour French colonial expansion, and nothing
was done.
The British captured Pondicherry and the other French settlements in
India in 1793, but agreed to restore them under the Treaty of Amiens. For
reasons which will be indicated later, however, the territories were not
evacuated by British troops, who continued to hold them till the
post-bellum readjustment of 1815 was negotiated.
A similar record applies to Senegal, in West Africa. It had been French
since the era of Richelieu, with intervals of capture, restoration, and
recapture. The British ousted their rivals once more in 1804, and gave
back the conquest in 1815.
A careful examination of these details reveals a remarkable fact.
Although the year 1810 saw the Napoleonic empire at the crest of its
greatness in Europe; although by that time the Emperor was the mightiest
personal factor in world politics; although in that year he married a
daughter of the Caesars, and thought he had laid plans for the foundation
of a dynasty that should perpetuate the Napoleonic name in association
with Napoleonic power - yet, in that very year, France had been stripped
of the last inch of her colonial possessions. The nation in whose
glorious Pantheon were emblazoned the great names of Montcalm and
Dupleix, of Jacques Cartier and La Salle, of Champlain and La
Bourdonnais, and whose inveterate capacity for colonisation of even the
most difficult kind can never be doubted by any candid student of her
achievements in this field, both before and since the disastrous
Napoleonic age, was now naked of even so much as a barren rock in a
distant sea upon which to plant her flag.
Such is the picture of the French colonial system as it presents itself
during the period within which occurred the events described in this
book. These facts give poignancy to the reflection of the distinguished
philosophical historian who has written of his country: "A melancholy
consequence of her policy of interference in neighbouring states, and of
occupying herself with continental conquests, has always been the loss of
her naval power and of her colonies. She could only establish oversea
possessions on a durable foundation on the condition of renouncing the
policy of invasion that she practised in Europe during the centuries.
Every continental victory was balanced by the ruin of our naval power and
of our distant possessions, that is to say, the decrease of our real
influence in the world."* (* Leroy-Beaulieu, Colonisation chez les
Peuples Modernes, 1902 edition, 1 220.)
PART 3.
It would be simple to sum up the colonial situation of Great Britain in
the period under review, by saying that she gained just in the measure
that France lost. But such a crude formula would not convey a sufficient
sense of her actual achievements. The end of the great war left her with
a wider dominion than that with which she was endowed when she plunged
into the struggle; but it left her also with augmented power and
prestige, a settled sense of security, and a steeled spirit of
resolution - elements not measurable on the scale of the map, but counting
as immense factors in the government and development of oversea
possessions.
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