Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/92

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Haiti: Her History and Her Detractors

general they sent a delegation of three members, Rey, Leborgne and Keverseau, to the South for the purpose of controlling the administration of that province; they decided to cause the arrest of Pinchinat, who was universally esteemed and whose influence was feared by Sonthonax. This delegation arrived at Cayes on June 23, 1796, increased by the addition of Desfourneaux in the capacity of General Inspector of the troops of the South and the West. It was this same General Desfourneaux whose intrigues had provoked an armed conflict in Port-au-Prince on March 17, 1794. Having suffered defeat at the hands of the mulatto Monthbrun, he was, like Sonthonax and Laveaux, unfriendly toward the colored men. Another of the delegates, Rey, having been implicated in an attempt to murder Andre Rigaud in 1793, had been compelled to flee from Caves. And this was the man who had been sent there as the official superior of this general. In this manner Sonthonax and his colleagues plainly showed how slightly they minded wounding the feelings of Andre Rigaud, who, however, had been the one to drive away the English from Léogane and Tiburon, who had kept order and discipline in the whole Southern province, and whose devotion to France could not be questioned. Rigaud's crime consisted in the confidence reposed in him by both blacks and mulattoes, and, in consequence, his influence over them. They charged him with striving for the independence of Saint-Domingue and with keeping out the whites from public offices. Yet at Cayes on the arrival of the delegates two white Frenchmen occupied the position of Orderer (ordonnateur) and Controller of the Treasury, and they were so successful in their management of the finances that the Southern province was able to subsist on its own resources. On account of their devotion to Andre Rigaud, however, they were dismissed and replaced by mere tools of the Agents. The squandering of the people's money began. The order for the arrest of Pinchinat increased the discontent of the inhabitants. But he could not be found, for