Port-au-Prince. Night fight between Mauduit’s grenadiers and the National Guard before the Committee of the West; the government party dominates.

The Committee of the West, alarmed by the government’s energetic measures, increased its ordinary guard tenfold and assembled the National Guard, made up for the most part of petits-blancs devoted to the colonial assembly, the more so since the government seemed disposed to treat the men of color with consideration. In the night of 29 to 30 July 1790 a strong patrol of Pompons-Rouges, meeting a weak detachment of the regiment of Port-au-Prince, disarmed it. At this news de Mauduit, at the head of a company of grenadiers, marched against the National Guard, which he found drawn up before the Committee’s hall. He summoned it, in the name of the Nation, the Law and the King, to lay down its arms. One Bordelier, by way of answer, ordered his company to open fire. Fifteen grenadiers fell, wounded or killed. The Pompons-Blancs threw themselves furiously on the Pompons-Rouges, dispersed them, and would have made a frightful slaughter of them had Mauduit not checked their charge.