Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [90]
Hedouville sailed for France on October 22,1798. He had lasted for less than one year in Saint Domingue. As a parting shot, he transferred all his authority as representative of the French government to General Andre Rigaud. It remained to be seen whether this gesture would be as ineffectual as Sonthonax's similar appointment of Dieudonne a few years previously.
Ignoring Hedouville's promotion of Rigaud, Toussaint invited Roume (who, since his experience began in the early 1790s, was probably the most seasoned French diplomat still in Saint Domingue) to return from the Spanish side of the island and replace Hedouville. Roume had been authorized by the home government to take over as agent if Hedouville died, and Toussaint now invoked this clause, despite a slight difference of circumstances. Leery of this proposition at first, Roume eventually accepted it, arriving at Port-au-Prince in January 1799. Perhaps he could serve as the sole European chief that Toussaint had been longing for. On his way into French Saint Domingue from the Spanish side of the island, Roume ran into several intimidating demonstrations by large mobs of blacks, whipped up by Toussaint to remind the Frenchman just how real power was balanced. A delegation met Roume at Croix des Bouquets just outside Port-au-Prince and warned him that his authority would be recognized only if he acted in concert with Toussaint—perhaps a deliberate echo of the similar promise Laveaux had made to the citizens of Le Cap when he appointed Toussaint lieutenant governor in 1796.
Despite the color of French authority that Roume's presence could provide, recent developments, especially the imperfectly kept secret treaty with Maitland, gave rise to suspicion that Toussaint meant to make the colony independent, if he had not, for most practical purposes, already done so. There were leaks of the Toussaint-Maitland accord in the correspondence of English merchants and even American newspapers like the Baltimore Telegraph, where English agents were wont to plant propaganda stories from time to time. The Telegraph also reported that Toussaint expelled Hedouville because the agent was planning to invade the United States. In December 1798, a London newspaper put it in the plainest English: “With this treaty, the independence of this important island has, in fact, been recognized and guaranteed against any efforts the French might make to recover it.”45 Yet this sally might have been more a taunt of the French than a description of the actual situation in Saint Domingue.
Toussaint, meanwhile, continued to make substantial gestures of loyalty to France. With a series of local proclamations, letters to Laveaux, and reports to French official entities like the Ministry of Marine, he built a case for Hedouville's misconduct, analogous (in his representation) to that of Sonthonax. The foundation of these arguments was the old, prerevolutionary competition which the home government had intentionally fostered between the military governor of the colony and the civil intendant (Thomas Maitland had known how to play on this built-in fissure). Thus the civil chief, Sonthonax, with right and the law on his side, had in 1793 emerged bloody but more or less victorious over the military governor, Galbaud. Toussaint, as military governor with right on his side, had righteously deported the civil chief Sonthonax in 1797. The abrupt departure of Hedouville was explained in a similar manner. In his letter to the Directory, Toussaint accused the agent's entourage of counterrevolutionary