Thomas reads the 1801 constitution as deliberate self-restraint

Thomas builds his thesis on the opening declaration of the 1801 constitution, in which the representatives of the colony establish the constitutional bases of the regime of the French colony of Saint Domingue. Read alongside the letter Toussaint wrote after his capture, protesting his innocence and his loyalty to France, the professions of allegiance look flatly at odds with what he was actually doing. Thomas argues they were strategic rather than deceptive in any simple sense. A declaration of independence would have accelerated French determination to reconquer, forfeited American trade and neutrality, and left him with only a thinly stretched British navy for an ally. The mechanism was purchased time, and Thomas quotes Rayford Logan's view that Toussaint intended to declare complete independence when the moment looked propitious and meant to avoid provoking an expedition until then.

Jefferson entered office and American policy shifted just as Bonaparte began preparing the expedition. Girard explains the change through interest rather than sentiment. Adams had favoured the commercial interests of New England merchants; Jefferson, in the wake of the Gabriel conspiracy, had every reason as a southern slave owner to fear the example of a society governed by former slaves. The young French ambassador raised the expedition at his first meeting with the new president and reported with pleasure that Jefferson had compared the colony to the piratical Barbary states and asserted, incorrectly, that Louverture had no support in the United States and that his example was dangerous for two thirds of the states. Girard notes this was the diplomatic assurance Talleyrand needed, though Jefferson later had second thoughts and Madison ordered strict neutrality.

Bonaparte persuaded Spain to return Louisiana under the secret treaty of San Ildefonso in October 1800, with the transfer taking effect in 1802. Girard insists the purpose was economic rather than strategic. French colonies produced coffee, sugar, cotton and indigo but no wheat, so they bought flour, timber and dried cod from American merchants on terms French officials considered extortionate. General Claude Victor, who was to command the garrison for Louisiana, argued that supplying the colonies without foreign help would be an immense advantage. The result would have been a self sufficient empire running from Louisiana to Guyane. Three expeditions were fitted out in 1802, Leclerc with twenty thousand men for Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo, Richepance with thirty five hundred for Guadeloupe, and Victor with three thousand for Louisiana, though the last sat in Flushing and Dunkirk for want of troops and transports. Where this account departs from the standard one: Girard reads the Louisiana retrocession as a food supply scheme for the sugar colonies, against readings that make it a strategic threat to the United States.

Thirty-two ships of the line plus twenty-two frigates and corvettes carried Leclerc's army under Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse. The expedition doubled as a political purge. Units and generals suspected of radical republicanism were posted far from Europe, among them chief of staff Charles Dugua, who openly blamed the colony's troubles on reactionary planters. Rigaud and Petion, the two men of colour Toussaint had driven into exile, travelled as advisers. The departure was delayed by the late arrival of Leclerc's wife Pauline. That delay mattered, because timing determined whether newly landed European troops would meet the fever season. Toussaint had expected French action since mid-December and had already posted his brother Paul and Clervaux to Santo Domingo, Laplume to the south, Dessalines and Age to the west, and Christophe and Maurepas to the north, with orders to fall back into the mountains if overwhelmed.