Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/105

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Hédouville Divides Toussaint and Rigaud.
95

same emigrants. The conflict between the two generals was assuming an alarming aspect. Several officers under Toussaint's command had already begun to disregard Hédouville's authority. Dessalines, who was Commandant of the Arrondissement of Saint-Marc, had flatly refused to carry out one of his orders. Moise, Commandant of the Arrondissement of Fort Liberté, assumed such a threatening attitude that the representative of the French Government decided to dismiss him. But Toussaint Louverture's nephew, who was fully aware of his uncle's intentions, warned the people to be prepared for all contingencies.

Hédouville, still believing that he could assert his authority, invested Manigat, a justice of the peace at Fort Liberté, with all the civil and military powers. In order to prevent any disturbance of the peace the magistrate ordered the disarmament of the Fifth Regiment. A bloody fight ensued; and Moise, fearing to be arrested, fled to the country, where he set to work to stir up the people (October 16, 1798). A band of armed peasants marched to Cap-Français, where they were joined by Dessalines. Like Sonthonax, Hédouville was then compelled to leave Saint-Domingue. He sailed on October 23, 1798, on the frigate La Bravoure. In a proclamation issued the day before he had censured Toussaint Louverture's behavior in very strong terms. And, in order to divide the blanks and mulattoes, he had authorized Rigaud to defy the authority of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. On October 22 he wrote as follows to the Commandant of the Southern province: "Compelled to quit the colony through the ambition and perfidy of General Toussaint Louverture, who has sold himself to the English, the emigrants, and the Americans,—and has violated his most solemn oaths,—I release you entirely from the authority intrusted to him as a Commander-in-Chief, and I entreat you to assume the command of the Southern Département as designated in the law of Brumaire 4th … "[1]

  1. B. Ardouin, Studies of Haitian History, Vol. III, p. 311.