Christophe published at the Cap a proclamation defending his conduct and attacking Pétion.

At last, arrived at the Cap, Christophe published, on 14 January, a proclamation in defense of his conduct and full of gall against that of Pétion.

“I have pointed out to you (1),” he says to the people, “the perfidious plots which a handful of wicked men dared to foment against your liberty. These men, strangers to every human sentiment, have forced me, against my will, to make war on them. What titles do they bring to claim dominion over the people? What services have they rendered to public liberty? By what sacrifices have they guaranteed their devotion to our fatherland? Is it as Pétion did, by betraying General Toussaint, who had given him a higher rank, in order to rally to Rigaud, whom he abandoned, in order to come afterward with the French to fight us, until his own danger forced him to provide for his safety, that they have acquired claims on the public gratitude? This crafty man, whose deceit long concealed the boundless ambition to which he was given over; who, under the mask of a lying philosophy, was marching step by step to the execution of his odious designs; who was seen, through falseness of soul, to feign to dread the burden of command and to appear to abandon it to his subordinates, while he affected to pity publicly the lot of the cultivators and the soldiers, and to groan over the rigors and privations they underwent, in order to win, by a false compassion, the esteem of those blinded men whom he now plunges into slavery while speaking to them of liberty.