Santo Domingo. Siege raised; its country driven of inhabitants and burned.

When the Haitians entered the valley of Baní, skirting a rocky and wholly exposed beach, they were met by the sharpest fire from a French brig that had moored broadside on not far from the shore. Gabart, Pétion, Geffrard and Gérin avoided this murderous fire by leaving the beach and entering the gorges of the heights of the river Ocoa. They had not wished to lose uselessly even a few men. The emperor quickened his march, wishing to reach Marchand, his capital, before the arrival of the French troops which, he believed, were to land in Haiti. In four days’ march he went from Santo Domingo to Marchand. There he learned with fury that he had raised the siege for nothing, for no danger threatened the country. He had covered more than a hundred leagues in the space of four days over dreadful roads. He had feared being surprised in the East by the arrival of a French army, as Toussaint Louverture had been in 1802. Geffrard’s division went back to the department of the South; Pétion’s to the second division of the West; Gabart’s to the first division of the West, or the Artibonite.

For their part, Christophe and Clervaux had abandoned the positions they held on the left bank of the Ozama on the 28th at seven in the evening. Clervaux’s division formed the rearguard. That same night the cavalry gave to the flames all the sugar works of the plain of Santo Domingo. The Haitian columns of the division of the North, armed with torches, spread terror on every side; they gave almost no quarter to the armed Spaniards they met along their way. They burned Monte Plata, San Pedro, Cotuí, Macorís and La Vega. Those inhabitants of these districts who had not had time to get away from the road followed by Christophe and Clervaux were either killed or taken prisoner. Nine hundred persons from La Vega were led to Santiago by battalion chief Col Antoine. The colonel of the 29th demi-brigade, Jean-Jacques Bazile, burned the hattes of Don Miguel, Pedro Rivière, Saint-Aussaire, Aussé Cévailles, Mantiègue, Loharmance, Hoïtéare and Grepe Garcia. He had a great number of the laborers of these quarters slaughtered, gave the village of Moca to the flames, and went on to Santiago, where he joined Christophe. Étienne Albert, colonel of the cavalry, and Raymond, colonel of the 27th, crossed the river Yaque at the head of their corps and went to Banica and Bernabel Blanque, which they gave to the flames. The inhabitants of these districts, taken prisoner in great numbers, were sent on toward Le Cap under escort of Haitian troops. The town of Puerto Plata, a seaport, was given up to pillage and then burned by the colonel of the 2nd, Campos Tarrabès, and squadron chief Pierre Poux. The place of Monte Cristi was razed by Captain Habilhomme, and that of Isabela by battalion chief Reisy. Four hundred men led by Commandant Brossard swept the whole country that stretches between La Vega and Sabana de la Mar, burned Macorís, and carried off into captivity at Santiago a multitude of Spanish natives. On 6 April the whole division of the North was assembled at Santiago. Christophe set fire with his own hand to the buildings of that pretty town. In a few hours the Roman-style buildings, the cathedral, built in the Gothic style in the sixteenth century by the Castilians, and four other churches became the prey of the flames. Most of the prisoners were massacred. Some twenty priests were hemmed in in the cemetery. When the order was given to execute them, one of them, the abbé Basquez, seeing them falter, said to them: “Fear nothing; receive death with joy; verily I say to you, today we shall have crowns of laurel in paradise.” They knelt, raised their arms toward heaven, and were slain in that posture to the last man. General Christophe led into the North 349 men, 430 male children from the tenderest age to fifteen, and 318 girls, likewise from the tenderest age to fifteen. After burning Amira, he returned to Le Cap on 9 April 1805.