captain-general the support he wanted, the negroes
must have succumbed. None of the French generals
doubted that, with time and means, the military re-
sult could be attained. Instead of following Leclerc's
wishes, Bonaparte neglected the colony, except by fits
and starts; he sent out no competent officer to aid
or succeed Leclerc, but busied himself with European
quarrels, and showed that the colonial scheme was
little to his taste. As Leclerc had foreseen, the com-
mand fell at his death on General Rochambeau, an
incompetent officer, who began his administration,
December 7, by writing a demand for thirty-five thou-
sand men, and then introduced a period of senseless
and debauched cruelty and violence without a parallel
even in the history of the Empire. He was in the
midst of a frantic career, when the First Consul sud-
denly began a new war with England, which served
the double purpose of hiding from France the loss of
St. Domingo and Louisiana, and of restoring to Bona-
parte his freedom of action on the only field where he
could display his true instincts without restraint.

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