Note (return) — Chapter II

We left Levasseur governor in Tortuga after the abortive Spanish attack of 1643. Finding his personal ascendancy so complete over the rude natures about him, Levasseur, like many a greater man in similar circumstances, lost his sense of the rights of others. His character changed, he became suspicious and intolerant, and the settlers complained bitterly of his cruelty and overbearing temper. Having come as the leader of a band of Huguenots, he forbade the Roman Catholics to hold services on the island, burnt their chapel and turned out their priest. He placed heavy imposts on trade, and soon amassed a considerable fortune.113 In his eyrie upon the rock fortress, he is said to have kept for his enemies a cage of iron, in which the prisoner could neither stand nor lie down, and which Levasseur, with grim humour, called his "little hell." A dungeon in his castle he termed in like fashion his "purgatory." All these stories, however, are reported by the Jesuits, his natural foes, and must be taken with a grain of salt. De Poincy, who himself ruled with despotic authority and was guilty of similar cruelties, would have turned a deaf ear to the denunciations against his lieutenant, had not his jealousy been aroused by the suspicion that Levasseur intended to declare himself an independent prince.114 So the governor-general, already in bad odour at court for having given Levasseur means of establishing a little Geneva in Tortuga, began to disavow him to the authorities at home. He also sent his nephew, M. de Lonvilliers, to Tortuga, on the pretext of complimenting Levasseur on his victory over the Spaniards, but really to endeavour to entice him back to St. Kitts. Levasseur, subtle and penetrating, skilfully avoided the trap, and Lonvilliers returned to St. Kitts alone.