of mixed race), and also between those supportive of the French Revolution and those for a re-establishment of the Ancien Régime — or failing that, for Saint-Domingue's independence. In 1792, Sonthonax, Etienne Polverel and Jean-Antoine Ailhaud were sent to the colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haïti) as part of the Revolutionary Commission. They were accompanied by Jean-Jacques d'Esparbes, who had been appointed governor of Saint-Domingue. He was to replace governor Philibert François Rouxel de Blanchelande. The expedition included 6,000 soldiers. The commissioners found that many of the white planters were hostile to the increasingly radical revolutionary movement and were joining the royalist opposition. They announced that they did not intend to abolish slavery, but had come to ensure that free men had equal rights whatever their color. D'Esparbes worked against the commissioners and became popular with the royalist planters. On 21 October 1792, the commissioners dismissed d'Esparbès and named the vicomte de Rochambeau governor general of Saint-Domingue. Their main goal was to maintain French control of Saint-Domingue and enforce the social equality recently granted to free gens de couleur by the French National Convention as part of the decree of 4 April 1792. The legislation re-established French control of Saint-Domingue, granted full citizenship and political equality to free male blacks and free male mulattoes, but did not emancipate the slaves. Instead, he was tasked to defeat slave rebellions and induce the slaves to return to the plantations. Sonthonax had initially decried the abolition of slavery to gain the support of the whites on the island. Upon his arrival, he found that some whites and free people of color were already cooperating against the slave rebels. He did exile many radical whites who would not accept free coloreds as equals and managed to contain the slave insurgency outside of the North. Sonthonax and Polverel were sent to Saint-Domingue, as they proclaimed when they arrived, not to abolish slavery but to give to the free men, regardless of the color of their skin, equality of rights, granted to them by the decree of April 4, 1792. But ultimately, all slaves in the north province were granted freedom on August 29, 1793, by Sonthonax, and in the west and south provinces, from August 27 to 31 October, 1793, by Polverel. Following the proclamation, Sonthonax wrote a reply to those that were opposed to his and Polverel's decision in 1793 to grant these select slaves