Renewed Anglo-French war doomed the stranded French army in Saint-Domingue

Evidence

In early May the short-lived peace between the French and the British was broken in Europe. It was the coup de grâce for the French troops in Saint-Domingue. Already driven out of much of the colony, they now had no hope of receiving reinforcements from Europe and furthermore had to contend again with the British enemy. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1046

Two months later, in Saint-Domingue, a judge in Saint-Marc condemned Louverture for having defrauded a group of planters in 1799 by paying them too little for some of their properties in the Artibonite. The planters were invited to take back the properties, while the defendant, having “failed to appear,” was condemned to pay the court costs incurred by the planters. It was a gesture in futility on two counts. Louverture, of course, was not going to pay his fine, and there was little hope that the planters would recover their land. In early May the short-lived peace between the French and the British was broken in Europe. It was the coup de grâce for the French troops in Saint-Domingue. Already driven out of much of the colony, they now had no hope of receiving reinforcements from Europe and furthermore had to contend again with the British enemy. Rochambeau withdrew to Le Cap, where his “answer to the blockade of the ports by a British fleet, to the disintegration of his army, to the hospitals glutted with the mutilated and the dying, and to Dessalines’ victories, was to throw a ball.” During the “last days of Saint-Domingue,” with the remaining French forces in Le Cap surrounded by insurgents, the century of French rule ended in a final festival of brutal recrimination and pathetic debauchery. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1046

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider narrative arc: external geopolitics (Britain’s naval blockade and war with France) sealed the Haitian Revolution’s outcome, echoing how other Atlantic wars determined colonial fates.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1046