Fort Liberté (Petit-Goâve). Occupied by Gérin’s 2nd battalion of the 15th

He established himself at the Bridge of Miragoâne, which crosses the lake of that name, the boundary, on the north side of the peninsula, between the provinces of the West and the South. At once he sent the citizens Calice Brouard and Nicolas Brouard to Colonel Lamarre at Petit-Goâve to win him over to the insurrection. Lamarre, colonel of the 24th, was at the head of 1,800 men who obeyed him blindly. When the two envoys reached Petit-Goâve they announced publicly that they had taken refuge with their families so as to take no part in what was happening at L’Anse-à-Veau. But on the other hand they obtained a private interview with Lamarre and set out for him the object of their coming. Lamarre rejected their proposal and ordered the Chabanne bridge fortified, at the entrance of Petit-Goâve on the side of the Bridge of Miragoâne. He wrote to General Yayou, commander of the arrondissement, who was at Léogane, that the troops of the South meant to invade the province of the West. Yayou at once informed Pétion, commander of the 2nd military division of the West, of what he had just learned. In the midst of this, an old man named Jérôme came to the Chabanne bridge and handed Lamarre a letter that Borgella had addressed to him on leaving Aquin for L’Anse-à-Veau, when he was on his way to Gérin. Its effect was prodigious. It began with these words: To arms! To arms! dear Lamarre! the voice of your brothers calls you to the aid of the fatherland! Lamarre was suddenly shaken. The letter reminded him of his dearest former comrades in arms, whom he was about to fight, the men to whom he had many a time said that he had nothing but praise for the Emperor, but that if the Emperor went on giving himself up to every kind of excess, their party would be his. He resolved to declare for the insurrection. The night was far advanced; toward daybreak on the 14th General Yayou entered Petit-Goâve at the head of the troops of Léogane, and almost at the same moment Gérin took prisoner Eveillard, an officer of the 24th commanding the post at the Bridge of Miragoâne, and entered Petit-Goâve after covering six leagues at the double. Lamarre urged Yayou to obtain an interview with Gérin, and advised Gérin to have Fort Liberté occupied, a short distance from the town, where there was only a weak garrison. Gérin seized the position at once, installed there the second battalion of the 15th, commanded by Léveillé, and accepted the interview Yayou had proposed to him. Although he set out warmly for that general the causes that had led him to take up arms against Dessalines, he could not carry him along. Yayou answered him: I would be one of you if, in your party, inferiors had known how to respect their superiors. Has not General Vaval already been put to death? Gérin ordered Vaval to be brought into the room. At the sight of him Yayou, astonished, wavered. Nevertheless he raised a few more objections on the rashness of the undertaking, which were successfully answered. He left the place of the interview declaring that he would take no decision until he had heard General Pétion. At that same moment an aide-de-camp of the Emperor, Commandant Delpêche, entered Petit-Goâve. He was charged with making his way into the South, ascertaining the scale of the revolt, and reporting on it to His Majesty. As the insurrection had reached Petit-Goâve, he could not get past that town to reach the Bridge of Miragoâne; he took the road back to Marchand in all haste.