The Sun.
London, England, 1802-03-27 00:00:00

T. DOM/ATGO,

NY,'E nave great •satisfaCtion in being enabled to
lay before our Read,!rs some further inrere3ting in-
telli#nre respeCting St. Domingo. It has 'been
communicated to ns from undoubted authority, and
in part, from an Officer, who quitted the Island
only in Weber last.
There are in St.
.D0171;n0'0 more than zs'o,ooo
Negroes, of whom roo,ooo are capable of bearing
arms, and more than 4.0,000 are adually armed at
present. General. LECLERC has either been de_
ceived himself, or wished to deceive his Army; and
France when he said, 'r that TOUSSAINT nad,only
ten or twelve half brigades." In case of necessity
he can arm altogether more than 80,000 Blacks.
He is firmly resolved to defend himself, and should
he at'any.tirne be disposed to surrender, he has not
influence enough to make the inferior Generals, or
even the Soldiers follow his example. An obstinate
resistance on the part of the Negroes may therefore
be expeeted.

The French will easily possess themselves of all
the Maritime Towns, and even the Plains along the
Coast, but these only constitute a small part of Ste
Domingo. The plain 'of the Cul de Sac, which is
the largest, is only twenty miles in. extent.—ln
several places, as at L.' Arcahaye, the Plain is not
more than three or four miles in size—ln possessing
themselves of the Plains and the Maritime Towns,
the French have three objels in view : Ist, To
procure themselves provisions of every kind, of
which they stand much in want : zdly, To protel
the Sugar 'Plantations and render them produdive ;
(those of Coffee are in the mountains :) and idly, to
intercept all maritime communication between
TO USSAI NT and the United States; from whence he
procures his warlike stores.
The French will only temporarily accomplish the
first object ; for, besides, that the different Towns
on the coast do not afford any abundant supplies of
provisions, the Negroes will certainly, in a great
measure, destroy them before retiring into the
Mountains, and the rest will be very soon con-
sumed by 30,000 Soldiers and 15,000 Sailors—lt.
may easily be supposed that so large a number of
mouths must, during the passage, have expended
almost all the pro Visions carried out by the Fleet ;
and this cannot admit of doubt, when we see Ad-
miral VILLARET stating in his dispatch, when he
speaks of the Expedition projeded against Port de
Paix and St. Nicholas Mole, " if 'this expedition
he successful, .as we have every reason-to hope, the
Army will obtain many advantages and resources of
which it stands in the greatest need."—The French
having the sea open to them, may by that means no
doubt get provisions, but it will be at an enormous
expellee. . .

The French will only be able to accomplish the
second objet in a very imperfect manner ; for the
Negroes, retired into the Mountains, will almost
nightly descend into the 'plains, aarni all the posts,
and from time to time burn the Plantations, which
they regularly did, when they mach war against the
English. The continual alerts which they will
thus give to the French Troops will oblige them
to fly to arms on one point or other every night,
and we may 1.-rliaps reckon, that from this single
cause alone, the one half of the Army will, in a few
weeks, be dead or in the hospital.
The last object is the only one which the French
will attain ; but it is believed that TOUSSAINT has
considerable depots of arms and powder ; and as for
provisions, the mountains will supply enough of
what is necessary for the extreme temperance of
the Negroes.
TOUSSAINT has on his side the most powerful of
all Allies, the Climate—lt will do more for
him than sox= Soldiers. The heat of the day.and
the damps of the night, from which the French
cannot help themselves from being successively ex-
posed, will probably, between this and the month
of June, cut ofF more than the half of the 30,000
Soldiers sent to St. Domingo, and the want which
they will most strongly feel will be that of Phy-
sicians, medicines, and proper hospital stores. It
is impossible that the Fleet could, have carried all
these in a sufficient quantity, and they will find it
impossible to supply the deficiency on the spot.
The mortality which the heat, the damps, the
rains, and intemperance generally produce amongst
European Soldiers in St. D0771111g0 is such, that out
of twenty Battalions which were sent thither in
1788, not more than soo men ever returned to
Europe. It is in these points that the great su-
periority of the Negroes consists. Accustomed to
the Climate, which is.healthy for them, having no
need of cloaths, and living on pulse or fruits, they
will preserve their numbers, their force, their
health, and their aCtivity, while all these will
daily diminish on the side of the French.
The Negroes have another great advantage, that
of being able to avoid the kind of warfare most
suitabie to the French, while these cannot avoid
that most agreeable to the Blacks. ThesClast, re-
tired into their defiles and mountains, will always
have the choice of the place and the time where and
when they wish to fight—they will make a con-
tinual petty warfare of surprizes, ambuscades, and
stratagems; the kind of war, in short, which SPAR-
TACUS made against the Romans, which the Cor-
sicans made against the French; and the Maroons
made in, Jamaica—but none of these had, in the
same degree, the advantage of ground which the
Blacks have in St. Dom:ngo; the mountains of that
Island extending more than soo miles from East to,
West, and presenting insurmountable obstacles to.
any armed body that may attempt to penetrate
them. The Blacks then will carry on a war which
may be extended on the. greatest possible scale, and
with all the advantages which climate, physical
constitution, and ground can give them. Before
these advantages must sink the only ones which the
French possess, those of superiority of tactics, of
discipline, and military resources.
What then is the result of this state of things ?
It is, that the French Conquests will be confined to
the line of. Sea-Coast, and that they will reap from
thence but a small proportion of produce, a great
number of the Plantations having been destroyed by
the Negroes, and those which remain, without cul-
tixatop, are day and night exposed to the incur*

:lions and the fOi±t\C'S as (17;ni:.
Lizet,ehc and Adilliral 13_,LAlt ET hAve
they will not repose till they conquered
the whole island, BONAF AR TE should ptOare to
transport se,ooo men more bif.)re the *end of the year,
and then perhaps he may find himself master of some
of the lesser mountains of Si. Doz;;:i7igo.

• The French haVe absolutely only two chances for,
rendering themselves undisputed masters :if the
Island—The one is, the submission of ad the
Blacks ; but when we consider the horror which.
these have for labour and slavery, and the contempt
they feel for life, such an idea cannot be entertain-
ed for a moment—besides, the Negro is extremely
distrustful, and has no conception or a pardon for
crime ; and there are few amongst those that
armed who have not massacred some white man, or
committed some other atrocious deed.

The other chance (and it is the only one which
presents an appearance of success), is to endeavour
to arm the Blacks against the Blacks, and to,
strengthen the first by a thousand or twelve hundred
dogs, such as were carried to Jamaica, and before
which the Maroons immediately submitted. Lei
CLERC says that he had already armed tOOO or
1.200 Negroes, but that is not credited by persons
capable of forming conjectures on this subject, and
these think that the French General wiil find it
difficult to augment the number of those xwhom
he may have found at his first landing in the habita-
tions, and whO were probably for the most part old
or infirm.—As for the dogs, the French it may be
supposed will not have recourse to this means until
they shall have experienced the insufficiency. of
every other, and then much time must be lost before
they can get a sufficient number from the Spanish
Colonies.

The general result is, that the state of things in
St. Domingo is such, as to present the almost ccrrain
appearance of a long and destruaive • War, and of
an inconsiderable and precarious cultivation