La Croix-des-Bouquets. Occupied without a blow by two thousand French.

The white troops did not yet hold Fort National. Had Lamartinière resolved to defend it with as much vigor as he had fought with at the Léogane post, Boudet would have lost half his army. Boudet did not dare to have it assaulted: at that time the fort was as the English had left it, formidable in aspect. As he saw no movement in it, he thought it had been abandoned. He sent to reconnoiter it Captain Audigé, a man of color, whose submission he had received that morning. Audigé, on his return, assured him that it had been evacuated. The 90th of the line went to take possession of it. On the same day the two battalions of the 13th, which had withdrawn into the hills of l’Hôpital during the fighting, came down into the town and submitted to the new government. The French at once set about restoring order and confidence in the town. All the cultivators of the neighborhood were allowed to enter it and to leave it freely. The soldiers of the 3rd colonial were given back their arms and told that they were not prisoners, since they were French. On every side the citizens gave the European troops the best of welcomes. These had received orders to respect the manners and customs of the inhabitants, to treat them well, to receive whites, Blacks and mulattoes with the same cordiality, and to conduct themselves as in Germany, in Italy and in Egypt. By their courtesy and their brilliant uniforms they greatly pleased the Creole women, who would have given them magnificent entertainments had General Boudet not forbidden every kind of public rejoicing: the blood of a thousand whites slaughtered around the town saddened him deeply. In the following days all the commandants of the cantons near Port-Républicain submitted one after another. On 9 February, five days after the occupation of the town, General Boudet learned that Dessalines had appeared in the plain of the Cul-de-Sac. At daybreak he sent two thousand men to occupy La Croix-des-Bouquets. The French took that market town without striking a blow. They put out the fire that had been set to some houses at their approach. Dessalines was at Saint-Raphaël when he learned of the arrival of the French expedition. He had taken 24 hours to reach the plain of the Cul-de-Sac, having covered a distance of 68 leagues. He was accompanied by a battalion of the 7th, which he had picked up at L’Arcahaie on his way. He had stopped only an hour at Saint-Marc to send by sea verbal instructions to Colonel Dommage, who commanded at Jérémie, by a lieutenant of the 4th, Sézaire Savary. He had sent Dommage the order to burn Jérémie and to massacre all the whites. In the upper plain of the Cul-de-Sac he joined Monpoint, Magny and Lamartinière, who were at the head of the guard of honor. It was then that citizens Saint-James and O’Gorman, young white men who were in Toussaint’s guard, had the good fortune to leave their corps, helped in their flight by Captain Patience, a Black man, and to join the French.