1811–1812: (The Death of Rigaud, the Rise of Borgella, and the Naval Battle off Miragoâne): The détente of Miragoâne did not rule out intrigue: before 1811 w…

1811–1812: (The Death of Rigaud, the Rise of Borgella, and the Naval Battle off Miragoâne): The détente of Miragoâne did not rule out intrigue: before 1811 was very old, Pétion had engineered a revolt at Les Cayes while Rigaud in turn was probing east toward Port-au-Prince, but Rigaud’s hour in the sun was short — during the summer he sickened, and on September 18, 1811, the Premier des Mulâtres died aged fifty on his plantation, Habitation Laborde. Rigaud’s heir was Jérôme-Maximilien Borgella, mulâtre son of the French Borgella who had been mayor of Port-au-Prince and had helped Toussaint draft the constitution of 1801 — Borgella was brave, popular, and a Freemason of Les Cayes’s old lodge, l’Heureuse Réunion, and his cause at first prospered. In January 1812, Christophe had a squadron cruising the Bight of Léogâne to intercept commerce headed for Port-au-Prince, but unbeknownst to him, mutineers bribed by Pétion were aboard the flagship — a frigate — and off Miragoâne they struck, captured the ship, and brought her to Borgella, who also lured in Christophe’s other two ships, whose crews quickly changed sides. With its flagship renamed Heureuse Réunion, the South now possessed most of Christophe’s navy, but not for long: H.M.S. Southampton encountered the three ships off Miragoâne, and when Captain Augustin Gaspard refused to strike and opened fire, declaring he would rather sink than surrender, the ensuing murderous fight left his foremast and bowsprit shot away and a hundred dead and wounded before he was taken as a prize into Port Royal, Jamaica. The annals of Haiti scarcely recall Gaspard’s name, yet his stand against the British frigate represents one of the few instances where the young republic’s navy engaged a major European warship in open combat.