San Domingo ended ingloriously, for the negroes in 1803 drove the
debilitated chivalry of France in defeat and disaster to the sea, and
chose to be their ruler one who, like themselves, had commenced life as a
slave. Napoleon said at St. Helena that his attempt to subjugate San
Domingo was the greatest folly of his life.

In the Indian Ocean the French possessed the Isle of France (now, as a
British colony, called Mauritius) and Reunion. They had not yet
established themselves in Madagascar, though there was some trade between
the Mascareignes and the colonists of the Isle of France. Bonaparte
during the Consulate contemplated making definite attempts to colonise
Madagascar, and, early in 1801, called for a report from his first
colonial minister, Forfait. When he obtained the document, he sent it
back asking for more details, an indication that his interest in the
subject was more than one of transient curiosity. Forfait suggested the
project of establishing at Madagascar a penal colony such as the British
had at Port Jackson;* (* Prentout, L'Ile de France sous Decaen, 302.) but
subsequent events did not favour French colonial expansion, and nothing
was done.

The British captured Pondicherry and the other French settlements in
India in 1793, but agreed to restore them under the Treaty of Amiens. For
reasons which will be indicated later, however, the territories were not
evacuated by British troops, who continued to hold them till the
post-bellum readjustment of 1815 was negotiated.

A similar record applies to Senegal, in West Africa. It had been French
since the era of Richelieu, with intervals of capture, restoration, and
recapture. The British ousted their rivals once more in 1804, and gave
back the conquest in 1815.