colonel de Mauduit dispersed the provincial committee of the West at Port-au-Prince with a force that included Pétion.

The progress of the assembly disquieted the partisans of France more than ever. Accordingly the comte de Peynier held a council of war at Port-au-Prince on 29 July: this council decided to disperse the provincial committee of the West which, of all those of the colony, followed most closely the criminal ways of the Saint-Marc assembly, and then to march against that same assembly. The news of this determination spread through the city; the committee, already protected by two small pieces of cannon, had its guard of *pompons-rouges* increased and called all the townsmen to its defense. Colonel de Mauduit, charged with the expedition, marched in the night at the head of a hundred men of his regiment and twenty-two volunteers of the *pompons-blancs*, men of color and whites, among whom was Pétion; he dispersed the committee after a few shots of musketry and cannon. He had lost ten or twelve men; the committee, three. The flags of the national guard, which were deposited in the hall of sessions, were carried off and borne in triumph to the barracks. Pétion had received in this little affair what the soldier calls the baptism of fire; his bearing had fixed the attention of colonel de Mauduit.