Fort Saint-Clair. Hits the frigate Fine during the bombardment.

The civil commissioners had under their orders one hundred and fifty men of European troops and twelve hundred freedmen furnished to them by Saint-Marc. Having put in at the Arcahaie with the ship of the line the América, the frigates the Fine and the Astrée, and the storeship the Normande, they came to blockade Port-au-Prince on 5 April. The town was defended by a numerous artillery; many grates had been made there for heating shot. At the same time the army of Saint-Marc, which had landed at the Arcahaie, entered the plain of the Cul-de-Sac and came to camp at the Portail Saint-Joseph. It was commanded by the governor, Delasalle; Chanlatte was its major general. Bauvais, having abandoned Grescier, had entrenched himself at Bizoton. On the 6th the municipality declared that it held the civil commissioners responsible for every evil the town might have to suffer. On the 8th the merchants, terrified by Borel, made a like declaration. Polvérel and Sonthonax for their part announced that they meant the law of 4 April and national sovereignty to be respected. Borel, surrounded by the former henchmen of Praloto, who breathed nothing but fire, plunder and slaughter, declared to the honest men who dared to remonstrate with him that he was the people and must be obeyed. The mayor of the town, Borgella, saved many citizens from his fury. Ricard, commander of Port-au-Prince, the same man who had distinguished himself at the taking of the Bastille at the head of the company of the crossbow, was arrested and shipped off. The civil commissioners, having granted the town three days to submit, to no purpose, ordered the attack on 12 April. The América and the frigate Fine fired three blank rounds at Port-au-Prince. All the forts of the place at once answered with red-hot shot. The cannonade became general on both sides. Two red-hot shot set fire aboard the América; it was put out; the frigate Fine took, at the waterline, two 24-pound balls fired from Fort Saint-Clair, where Borel the Hunchback, brother of the notorious Borel, was in command. The cannonade went on for several hours, during which the squadron threw 4,500 balls into the town. On the 13th the commissioners threatened to storm the place if it did not surrender. The municipality and the mass of the citizens, frightened by the misfortunes that threatened them, urged Borel to submit. Armed with a saber and a pistol, lying in the middle of the municipality’s council chamber, surrounded by his chief cutthroats, Binsse and Philibert, he declared that he would have the national guard decimated if it spoke of surrender, and would have the warehouses of the merchants who asked for peace burned. He saw himself outrun; still, he consented to abandon Port-au-Prince with his saliniers and his Africans only after receiving from the citizens 66,000 livres in gold and 300,000 livres in bills of exchange. He went to Jacmel, which was devoted to him, and from there to Jamaica.