Jacmel. Bauvais’s address to the officers read on the parade ground.

What was the astonishment of all these brave men when, suddenly, one morning in September 1799, the rumor went round that General Bauvais had embarked for St. Thomas, abandoning his young daughters and his wife. Astonishment soon gave way to indignation; the soldiers in their fury called their former general a traitor; some, however, shed tears and understood his disgust with public affairs; but all showed themselves ever ready to perish to the last man rather than submit to Toussaint. They continued to surround Bauvais’s family with care and consideration. Bauvais, embarking in the middle of a dark night, had sent Colonel Birot an address to the officers of Jacmel. Birot assembled the national guards and the Legion of the West on the parade ground and read this document to them.