Port-au-Prince. Festival of the federation.

The submission of Port-au-Prince gave the government a powerful influence in the province of the West. Tranquillity being restored there, Blanchelande resolved to make a journey into the South, and Roume to remain at Port-au-Prince to reorganize everything and to detach the men of color entirely from the party of the White Pompons, who were nothing but die-hard royalists. Blanchelande left for Jérémie, and Roume had to contend with the enslavers, who had taken a hostile attitude at Port-au-Prince since they had perceived that there was a wish to remove them from public affairs. On 14 July the civil commissioner celebrated the festival of the federation, which the royalists refused to attend; but the freedmen came in a body, and it was held with the greatest solemnity. Bauvais, seconding Roume energetically, easily drew the mulattoes away from the White Pompons; these, isolated, became powerless and were forced to put on the national colors. Bauvais said to the civil commissioner in the name of the freedmen: “We were never the dupes of the White Pompons; we had to conquer our rights; we needed auxiliaries; had the devil offered himself, we would have enlisted him; these gentlemen offered themselves, and we made use of them while letting them believe that they were duping us………. but we are incapable of deceiving the nation.” *