Tiburon. Held by five hundred republican troops; Whitelocke’s attack fails.

Meanwhile, on the advice of the whites of Jérémie, Whitelocke resolved to attack Tiburon, an important place that covered the Grand’Anse on the south. He embarked with six hundred English soldiers and arrived in the bay of Tiburon on 4 October. The place was held by five hundred men of Black and colored troops of the republican party. Morin Duval, a rich enslaver, at the head of 500 Black men of the Grand’Anse, was to support him in his enterprise. Duval had as his lieutenant one Jean Kina, a man formerly enslaved by M. Laroc of Les Irois, whom the council of Jérémie had named colonel.

Whitelocke, unable to effect his landing under the rather brisk fire of the republican batteries, went ashore a league from Tiburon. He received no word of Morin Duval, who was wandering through the woods, where he had lost his way. At the same time a body of cavalry commanded by Rigaud, sent from Les Cayes by Polvérel, came to reinforce the republicans. Whitelocke, held in check by forces superior to his own, could not act against the town. He re-embarked under the fire of the republicans after suffering a considerable loss, and returned to Jérémie. He reproached the council of safety and execution sharply, blaming it for the check he had just received. He complained of the bad intelligence he had been given. He was all the more indignant because yellow fever had broken out in his small army. He even resolved to evacuate Jérémie and the Môle. But the people of Jérémie, frightened at the abandonment in which they would find themselves and dreading the fury of the republicans, so implored the English not to re-embark that Whitelocke decided to ask the governor of Jamaica for reinforcements. Williamson sent him in all haste some companies of the 45th and the 20th and the corps of the Royals, 800 men in all. No more than 400 soldiers remained in Jamaica. The arrival of these troops raised the spirits of the royalist party, which believed it saw that the English government was determined to conquer Saint-Domingue at any sacrifice. It was spread far and wide that six thousand Englishmen had just landed at Jérémie.