Irois. Its camp, four leagues from Tiburon, repulsed the insurgents on 14 February

Goman and Giles Bénèche were in command there. General Darbois, although the whole quarter was in insurrection, resolved to drive them out. At Les Irois, four leagues from Tiburon, the French had a camp held by a Polish battalion and the grenadiers of the 20th European under the orders of Commandant Mordenet, by the dragoons of Cape Dame-Marie under the orders of Squadron Commanders Borgella and Fouillole, and by a battalion of National Guards. This camp had been set up to check the advance of the Indigenous toward Jérémie. The insurgents, learning that preparations were being made to attack them, forestalled the enemy and set out to carry the camp of Les Irois. They assailed the French at noon on 14 February. The French, though surprised, defended themselves valiantly and routed them after an hour’s fighting. The independents scattered over the countryside and then fell back on Tiburon. General Darbois, who was at Dame-Marie, came to Les Irois with his usual speed immediately after this attack. On the very night of his arrival, from the 15th to the 16th of February, he put himself at the head of all the troops of the camp and marched on Tiburon. Squadron Commander Borgella, who was with the advance guard, dispersed the independents he met on the high road and, after carrying the redoubt that protected Tiburon, boldly entered the town together with the fugitives. The captain of the French scouts, Latoulte, made a horrible slaughter of the prisoners. Those of the insurgents who escaped death made their way through deep ravines to Férou, who was encamped at Les Anglais. Darbois hastened back to Jérémie, which the enemy had insulted during his absence. The coasting trade between Les Cayes and Jérémie had become very difficult. Bégon, commander-in-chief of the Indigenous barges, energetically seconded by his lieutenant Aoua, was capturing nearly all the small French vessels that sailed along the coast. Kerpoisson himself did not dare to attack him. In the West the independents continued their efforts to drive the French from the towns of the coast. Lamour Dérance, who kept to the mornes of La Selle, sent orders to Commandant Magloire Ambroise to attack Jacmel. The town was surrounded by several thousand cultivators, divided into three corps commanded by men named Jérémie, Macaque and Lacroix. These three officers, under the orders of Magloire Ambroise, bore his authority with impatience. They thwarted all his operations as far as they could. On the night of 15 February Magloire Ambroise divided his army into five columns and assailed the place. Commandants Jérémie, Macaque and Lacroix were all three, each at the head of a column, to attack together the blockhouse, the principal fort of the town. As soon as the firing began, General Pageot, Colonel Dieudonné Jambon and Commandant Burres hurried eagerly into the redoubts of the place and fought the assailants at the head of the Legion of the Cap and the National Guard. The Constant post, commanded by Citizen Lafond, was only feebly attacked. The greatest efforts of the Indigenous fell on the blockhouse, which was defended by the soldiers of the Legion of the Cap under the orders of Captain Mansui. The fort would have been carried had not Commandants Jérémie and Macaque, jealous of Battalion Commander Lacroix, left him to wear himself out in vain around the fortification instead of supporting him. Magloire Ambroise was obliged to beat a retreat, leaving a great number of his men in the ditches of the blockhouse. Convinced that he owed his failure solely to the discord among his lieutenants, he had a letter written to Lamour Dérance saying that if he wished him to take Jacmel, he must send him ammunition and tafia and give him carte blanche so that he might cut off the heads of all the ambitious men in his troop. He nevertheless continued to invest the town closely. Pageot claimed that Magloire was in secret correspondence with a great number of Black and colored citizens of Jacmel, who were to rise in the middle of the town while he attacked it again. Many young men, it is true, were going over to the ranks of the independents. General Pageot had twenty notable citizens arrested, Black and mixed-race, among them men named Michel, Bayard, Jean-François and Moreau. Moreau, while he was being taken to prison, escaped, ran across the town, and had the good fortune to reach the countryside amid the whistling of the French carbineers’ bullets. He joined the besieging army.