National Palace (Jacmel). Birot proposes evacuation there.

On 10 January, Birot, recognizing that it was impossible to hold Jacmel any longer, assembled all the officers of the garrison at the National Palace and proposed to them that the town be evacuated. Most of them accepted his opinion. But when this resolution leaked out into the ranks of the soldiers, they showed themselves indignant and declared that they would rather all perish beneath the ruins of the town than abandon it. The plan had to be given up. But in the night that followed, Birot, commandant of the arrondissement, Fontaine, commandant of the town, Borno Déléard and Dupuche embarked secretly on a schooner commanded by Lartigue, a white man, harbor master of the port, and left for Les Cayes, abandoning a garrison that was intrepid and wholly devoted to the cause of Rigaud.