[PARTIALLY-PRINTED BILL OF EXCHANGE FOR SUPPLIES, SIGNED BY BARON DE MONTALEMBERT, COMMANDER OF THE GRENADIERS BRITANNIQUES, AND JOHN WIGGLESWORTH, AGENT TO THE COMMANDER OF THE 1796 BRITISH OCCUPATION FORCE IN HAITI]

Port-au-Prince, May 13, 1796.. 4 x 9 1/2 inches, completed in manuscript, docketed on verso. Minor toning and edge wear. Very good.

A rare pay order for supplies made out to Baron Jean-Charles de Montalembert on behalf of the invading British occupation force in Haiti. The document is signed by John Wigglesworth, agent to the Commander of the British forces in Haiti and later Britain's envoy to the leader of the Haitian Revolution, Touissant Louverture. By early the next century, Louverture would become, ever so briefly, chief of the first free Black Republic in Haiti. The payee, Montalembert, has docketed the verso, with an additional docket in French transferring the funds to Dutilh & Wachsmuth, a Philadelphia mercantile house.

Saint Domingo, the French part of Haiti, was a highly prosperous sugar, coffee, and cotton slave-estate island whose produce was described as exceeding that of the whole of the British Leeward and surrounding islands. In 1789 it was said to consist of 10,000 white people, 24,000 free mixed-race people, and 455,000 negro slaves. Although free, local laws decreed that mixed-race individuals could not accept any office or employment other than as planters. As news spread of the revolution, this group revolted but were roundly defeated. Part of the white response to the uprising was to create their own local assembly which excluded those of mixed race and resolved to transfer the island's allegiance to Great Britain, whereupon France sent Commissioners who according to some reports recruited negroes to fight the whites.

Starting in August 1791, the slaves revolted in many towns, implementing major massacres and destruction of estates and establishing free communities of their own. They were led by Touissant Louverture, an ex-slave who later joined the French army after the country abolished slavery in 1793. Louverture swiftly rose to the rank of Commander in Chief of the French forces in Haiti, and proved to be an effective leader. In 1794, the British army, under the pretense of the Napoleonic war, sent a force from Jamaica that occupied Port-au-Prince and some other towns, a welcome development for the remaining white population on the island. This British force was commanded by General Sir Thomas Maitland of the 62 Foot Regiment, for whom Wigglesworth was the army agent.

In the end, the British were not successful. By 1798, the army had been virtually wiped out by yellow fever, and in April of that year, Maitland withdrew the British forces from Haiti under a guarantee from Louverture that the remaining pro-British whites would be protected. In May 1801, Touissant established St. Domingo as an independent republic. This alarmed the French so badly that they subsequently sent an army of 25,000 that recaptured the island within a year, and then by a ruse conveyed Louverture to France where he soon after died in prison.

Baron de Montalembert had commanded the Legion Britanniques de Sainte-Domingue, a force of 1,200 men composed of white colonials, recruits from Europe, and possibly some free mixed-race Haitians. Montalembert's Grenadiers were one of the most dependable units fighting for the British until the aforementioned fever, along with heavy casualties decimated the unit. They disbanded on June 25, 1797.

A rare early Haitian document signed by two principal figures in the British occupation during the Haitian Revolution.