Môle Saint-Nicolas. Rich, populous and royalist, calls for the English; capitulates to Ford; English flag hoisted next day, with 200 cannon and two hundred thousand pounds of powder.

Meanwhile the Môle, which was then a rich and populous town, was preparing to give itself up to England as well. The place was perfectly supplied with munitions of war and with provisions. All its citizens were royalists except the mayor, Jeanton, who informed Sonthonax of the inclination of the national guard and the garrison in favor of England. The commander of the place, Deneux, the municipality, the colonel of the national guard, Chaumette, the regiment of Dillon, or 87th, commanded by O’Farel, Bellisle, mayor of Bombarde, and Jaunas, commander of La Plate-Forme, having learned that Sonthonax was organizing the bands of new freedmen of Port-de-Paix and Jean-Rabel under the orders of Pierrot and Joseph to lead them against the Môle, sent Commodore Ford at Jérémie a deputation charged with urging him to come as soon as possible and take possession of their town, which the republicans were seriously threatening. By a proclamation of 19 September Sonthonax had just declared Deneux, O’Farel, Jaunas and Chaumette traitors to the fatherland. The Môle was in the greatest terror; the civil commissioner was advancing, and the English did not appear.

Meanwhile Commodore Ford had left Jérémie with the Europa, of 50 guns, and several small transports. It was with transports of joy that on 21 September the inhabitants of the Môle sighted the English squadron. A capitulation like that of Jérémie was signed the same day; and the next morning at sunrise the English flag was hoisted over all the forts of the place. The national guard of 500 men and the regiment of Dillon put on the black cockade. Treason was seen delivering to one English ship of 50 guns one of the finest naval ports of the New World, defended by batteries rising in tiers and mounting a hundred pieces of heavy caliber. The English found there two hundred thousand pounds of powder and 200 cannon. On 28 September a company of the 13th regiment reached them from Jérémie; and on 12 October the second division of Williamson’s expedition, coming from Jamaica and composed of five companies of the 49th regiment, landed at the Môle. Until the arrival of these fresh forces two hundred and fifty seamen of Ford’s squadron had guarded the place. A few days later the English frigates Penelope and Iphigenia came to anchor in the roadstead.