Port-au-Prince. Monbrun attacks the 48th regiment; Sonthonax forced to embark it and Desfourneaux.

At five o’clock in the morning the firing still went on in the town between the freedmen and the white citizens. Then 6,000 newly free were seen entering Port-Républicain from the plain of the Cul-de-Sac, led by Hyacinthe, who asked Sonthonax to let him march against Monbrun. The civil commissioner, remembering the catastrophe at Le Cap of 21 June 1793, refused to yield to his entreaties. At eight in the morning he received a letter from Monbrun demanding that the 48th regiment and Desfourneaux be embarked; Monbrun added that if he did not consent, he would not answer for the life of a single white man in the town. Sonthonax was obliged to consent to all of Monbrun’s demands, and Monbrun went to fetch him at Fort Sainte-Claire and brought him back to the National Palace. The 48th regiment was embarked for France. Desfourneaux, taken prisoner by the English, refused to serve in their ranks. Smith, who commanded at Léogane, had the generosity to send him to the United States aboard a cartel ship. The civil commissioner, understanding that his authority was lost, gave passports to all the white people who wished to leave the colony, telling them that he was no longer powerful enough to guarantee their lives. A few days later several thousand newly free overran the Croix-des-Bouquets under the orders of a new band leader named Bébé Coutard. They wished to avenge the affront the civil commissioner had just received. The men of color entrenched themselves in the church of the village and resolved to sell their lives dearly. One of them, Daguin, stepped out of the ranks alone, armed with a musket, crossed the crowd of astonished cultivators and asked to speak to Bébé Coutard. As soon as he was pointed out to him, Daguin took aim and struck him down with a musket shot. This stroke of audacity spread terror through the ranks of the newly free, who scattered in every direction. General Bauvais, saved a second time, continued to hold the Croix-des-Bouquets. For several months the men of color had held their ground amid the passions Sonthonax was raising against them only by displaying the greatest courage, the greatest intrepidity and the greatest audacity.