Île d’Aix. Thévenard’s division sails with the civil commission.

Meanwhile fairly considerable armaments were being fitted out at Brest and Rochefort; and in the first days of April 1796 a French squadron carrying 1,200 troops, national volunteers as well as artillery, 20,000 muskets, 400,000 livres of powder and twelve field pieces left the ports of France in two divisions. The first, commanded by Division Chief Henri Alexandre Thévenard, weighed anchor from the Île d’Aix on 6 April; it was made up of the ships of the line Fougueux and Watigny, of 74, the frigate Vengeance of 40 and the corvette Berceau of 20; it carried the four civil commissioners Sonthonax, Giraud, Raymond and Leblanc, General Rochambeau, the adjutants-general Kerverseau and Duport du Tertre, the brigadier generals Mirdonday, Desfourneaux, Martial Besse, Bédos and Lesuire, the war commissary Le Borgne, and General Chanlatte, just released from the prisons of England. The other naval division, commanded by Captain Guillaume Thomas, left Brest. It was made up of the frigate Méduse of 40, the frigate Insurgente of 36, the corvette Doucereuse of 20 and eight transports.