Fort-Dauphin. Taken by Clausel

Rochambeau ordered General Clausel to take command of an expedition directed against Fort-Liberté. A battalion of the 86th demi-brigade of the line, commanded by Colonel Lenormand, was embarked on the ship of the line Annibal; the frigates Embuscade and Guerrière and the corvette Sagesse carried several other corps and a battalion of artillery. The squadron appeared before Fort-Liberté on 10 Frimaire (1 December) at two o’clock in the afternoon. A battalion of the 1st Indigenous demi-brigade and about a thousand cultivators held the place, which Toussaint Brave commanded. Ship captain Guillemet moored broadside on facing the town and cannonaded it; at the same time Clausel, at the head of the 86th, reached the shore. Toussaint Brave, in spite of the most vigorous resistance, was forced to abandon Fort Saint-Joseph, which the French grenadiers took. The Indigenous evacuated the town after setting fire to it and spiking 25 field pieces. Clausel stopped the fire, which consumed only five houses. All the guns of Fort Saint-Joseph fell into the hands of the French. Brigadier General Lavalette, who had accompanied General Rochambeau to Le Cap, showed great zeal and intrepidity in this affair. Rochambeau published this first success of his government throughout the colony. He announced that France would soon send new forces to Saint-Domingue and that all the positions abandoned under Leclerc’s government would be reconquered. He spoke loudly of the power of France; he said that her alliance was sought by every people. He announced that the consuls of the Republic had decreed on 19 Fructidor that all proceedings for the payment of sums owed by the colonists of Saint-Domingue to the national commerce would be suspended until 1 vendémiaire Year XVI. The colonists, drawn by Rochambeau’s splendid promises, were returning to the colony in crowds.