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158 fail to be secured as the first victim of a conspiracy prepared especially against his life, the commander-in-chief of the National Guard had been placed at his side, and his murder of the mulatto chieftain was to be the signal for a general onset upon all his followers. The officer to whom had been intrusted the assassination of Rigaud, found it no small matter to screw his courage up to the sticking point, and the expected signal, which he was to display in blood to his associates, was so long delayed, that secret messengers began to throng to him from all parts of the tables, demanding why execution was not done on Rigaud. Urged on by these successive appeals, the white general at last applied himself to the fatal task which had been allotted him; but instead of silently plunging his dagger into the bosom of the mulatto chief, he sprung upon him with a pistol in his hand, and, with a loud execration, fired it at his intended victim. But Rigaud remained unharmed, and, in the scuffle which ensued, the white assassin was disarmed and put to flight. The astonishment of the mulattoes soon gave way to tumult and indignation, and this produced a drawn battle, in which both whites and mulattoes, exasperated as they were to the utmost, fought man to man. The struggle continued fiercely until the whites were driven from the town, having lost one hundred and fifty of their number, and slain many of their opponents.

Tidings of this conspiracy flew rapidly in all directions; and such was the indignation of the mulattoes at this attack upon their chief, whose death had even been announced in several places as certain, that they seized upon all the whites within their reach; and