Louverture had kept control over the negotiations with the British for a very specific reason. He wanted them to withdraw from Saint-Domingue, but he also wanted their help in rebuilding the colony's economy. Even as he negotiated the withdrawal of the British with Maitland, therefore, he signed a secret treaty with the British general. Louverture promised not to attack or encourage sedition in Jamaica, and in return Maitland agreed to end the British blockade of the island. It was a bold step. France and Britain were still at war, and yet with this agreement—along with a second he signed in 1799 expanding its provisions—he was promising peace between French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. And he was agreeing to—indeed encouraging—trade between British merchants and the French Caribbean's major colony. Louverture was making sure that he would have a mechanism to export the coffee and sugar it produced and a source for what it needed to survive. But he was also doing more. He was preparing for the possibility of open conflict with the French government.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 319