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By Root 871 0

from the west of Saint Domingue, on condition that the French colonists who had collaborated with the British be granted amnesty. Over the next few days, Toussaint negotiated that the forts and their cannon would be turned over to him intact—a major and rather surprising concession. The accord was signed on April 30, and not until the following day did Toussaint write to Hedouville at Le Cap to notify him of the fait accompli. Teeth presumably clenched, Hedouville approved his action, noting marginally that French law and the French Constitution permitted no one to come to terms with proscribed emigres. But Hedouville could not influence events in the Western Department from where he sat, and troops commanded by Christophe Mornet and Toussaints brother Paul were already advancing toward Port-au-Prince across the Cul de Sac plain.

A great many Frenchmen chose to depart on British ships; those who remained were understandably apprehensive. Laplume was also present in force outside Port-au-Prince, and when he struck a peace agreement with the mulattoes of Croix des Bouquets, Bernard Borgella, the grand blancs mayor, sent a delegation to thank him. Then Christophe Mornet arrived in Port-au-Prince to assure Borgella that the transition would be orderly. A Frenchman in the town described Mornet's men:

His tattered troops, covered in a few rags molded to their trunks, true sans-culottes, starving and in want of everything, naturally should have breathed nothing but pillage; so far from anything like that, not only did they not commit the lightest insult, but we even saw them, upon entering a city evacuated by the enemy, go without rations for two days without a murmur. Where are the European soldiers who, in such a case, could maintain so exact a discipline?34

When Toussaint entered Port-au-Prince soon afterward, the amnestied French colonists came out to receive him with tremendous fanfare—doubtless born of their relief at the extraordinary self-control of the black troops already occupying the town. Toussaint appeared with extreme modesty, wearing a plain field uniform without epaulettes, his customary head-cloth tied beneath his tricorner hat. He declined the most extravagant gestures of the welcoming whites, declaring, “Only God should walk beneath a dais; only to the sole master of the universe should one offer incense.”35 He had, however, promised to respect their property, and he backed up the promise by sending the stray cultivators of the region back to work on the plantations. On May 26, he announced to all citizens of Port-au-Prince: “The times of fanaticism are no more; the rule of law has succeeded that of anarchy”36 When the British fleet sailed on May 28, Toussaint arranged aTe Deum in the Port-au-Prince cathedral to celebrate.

The evacuation of the west left the British with only two posts in the colony. Though the naval bases at Jeremie (threatened by Rigaud at nearby Tiburon) and at Mole Saint-Nicolas (which Maitland judged could not withstand a siege backed by the artillery which Toussaint could bring to bear from land) were valuable to the defense of Jamaica, Maitland judged that they were not worth their cost. On July 27, he reported to Governor Balcarres of Jamaica that he was on the verge of deciding to evacuate Saint Domingue altogether.

Throughout the summer of 1798, Maitland received emissaries from both Hedouville and Toussaint, still with the goal of promoting dissension between them—as Hedouville warned Toussaint in a July 5 letter. Aside from the particular differences developing between the agent and the general in chief, the traditionally contentious division of power between Saint Domingue's civil and military authorities was there for Maitland to exploit. On July 30, he decided to close the deal with Toussaint, having concluded (as Kerverseau had done) that as commander in chief of the army the black general held the real reins of power.

The accord for the evacuation of Jeremie, signed by General Huin for Toussaint and Colonel Harcourt for Maitland on August 13, was immediately put into