Pougaudin. Adjoining the George plantation where Toussaint was arrested

The former governor went to the Béranger plantation, from which he was to proceed directly to the Gonaïves. But on the George plantation, adjoining that of Pougaudin, he met General Brunet, who had come out to meet him. The French general received him with distinction in one of the rooms of the main house. “I am happy,” Brunet said to him, “that such an occasion affords me the advantage of seeing you again, of appreciating your talents, and of submitting to your judgment the plans I have formed for distributing our troops over various points of the island.” “My knowledge is very limited; still, I can give some information about the localities,” answered Toussaint, hiding his pride and his flattered self-regard: General Brunet was bowing low before him. At a given signal some twenty French officers entered the room and disarmed the Indigenous, who did not expect this treachery. Toussaint drew his saber and waited, undaunted, for those he took to be assassins. An aide-de-camp of Leclerc named Ferrari presented himself before him, the point of his sword lowered, and said to him: “General, by order of Captain-General Leclerc, hand me your saber; we have not come to do you harm; we wish only to arrest you.” “Infamous treachery!” cried Toussaint Louverture; “divine justice will avenge me; this is how you reward my services.” He returned his saber to its scabbard. It was 10 June. General Brunet had him kept under close watch for the rest of the day and the whole of the following night. The next day he had him bound and placed between two battalions of carabiniers drawn up in line. He entered the Gonaïves amid numerous European troops who had been posted in echelon along the high road from the George plantation to the town. Brunet had taken these precautions for fear of being attacked on the way by bands of cultivators who might have freed the prisoner. But the people of that district did not stir. The captain of the port of the Gonaïves, a Frenchman grown gray in the camps, was charged with escorting him aboard the frigate Créole, anchored in the roadstead. While he was being led toward the shore, the port captain lit a cigar and began to smoke. Toussaint exclaimed: “Who is smoking here? The smell of tobacco troubles me.” The old officer, without respect for misfortune, said to him insolently: “Many other things will trouble you before long.” When he reached the quay he refused to embark, saying he was not accustomed to the sea. But the French carabiniers struck him roughly with their musket butts and forced him into the boat, saying to him: “Come on, move along, Papa Toussaint.” In all the crowd that lined the shore not a single word of compassion was heard. For the rest of the day the frigate was dressed with flags from the gunports to the mastheads; the inhabitants of the Gonaïves heard the harmonious strains of martial music and the merriment of the French at a sumptuous banquet. Three days later the Créole was beating to windward off the Cap. The captain told Toussaint that he was going to transfer him to the ship of the line Héros. Toussaint went down into a boat, came alongside the ship, and said as he climbed aboard to Savary, who commanded her: “In tearing me from my country, they have felled in Saint-Domingue only the trunk of the tree of the liberty of the Blacks; it will spring up again quickly, for its roots are deep and vigorous.” On board the Héros he found his third son, Saint-Jean Louverture.