Pougaudin. Dessalines’s widow is sent there by Magny

When Bazelais came abreast of Saint-Marc, he resolved not to attempt a landing there, having learned from coasting boatmen that the town stood in a formidable posture. He made sail for Port-de-Paix. But on arriving off Les Gonaïves, he learned from a fisherman that this place was almost stripped of troops and that General Magny commanded there. General Vernet had just left it for Le Gros-Morne to stifle the insurrectionary movements that had broken out in the 14th demi-brigade. Instead of proceeding to his destination, Bazelais determined to seize the town and drew near it. At the first appearance of the republican sails, Magny, who had only about a hundred men under his orders, had the place evacuated (28 May). Those citizens who favored the cause of the Republic urged the widow of Dessalines to remain in the town so that she might afterward take ship for Port-au-Prince. She was showing herself irresolute when Magny compelled her to go into the interior to Pougaudin, from which she was sent on to Christophe at Le Cap. It would have been a great victory for the Republic to have in its bosom the widow of the Emperor Dessalines, taking refuge there of her own will, while Christophe proclaimed himself the avenger of the illustrious founder of the Independence of Haiti, although he had been one of the first to set to work to ruin his government.