Islet aux Bois. The Bernadotte is wrecked on its reefs

A few days later he showed, toward a large number of shipwrecked men, a conduct that at the time excited the admiration of the English. A French privateer, the *Bernadotte, commanded by Captain Dominique de San Yago, cruising off Jacmel in company with another French privateer, the *Tartare, had captured a Liverpool ship, Captain Robert Fraise, on the 14th of May. On the 28th of May following the same vessel took the English ship *Lancaster, Captain George Nicholson, which formed part of the convoy that had sailed from Jamaica for Liverpool. On the 1st of June the *Bernadotte captured within sight of the Môle Saint-Nicolas another English ship, the *Olive Blanche, Captain Thomas Nicks, which had sailed from Providence. On the 5th of June the *Bernadotte ran aground on the reefs of the Islet aux Bois, to leeward of La Grange. As soon as this disaster was known, General Toussaint Brave sent several barges to the help of the shipwrecked men, who were all picked up. Christophe had them lavished with attentions and relief, provided the English with the means of reaching Jamaica, and gave the French safe-conducts for Santo Domingo, in which he enjoined his armed vessels not to molest them. By this conduct he drew to himself the sympathies of the English and those of the Hispano-Indigenous; he hoped to see the latter range themselves under his authority, for most of the men of the *Bernadotte’s crew were natives of the eastern part of Haiti. From then on he would always show himself magnanimous toward the English. And so they, whose commerce he favored, for many years refused to spread the account of the acts of cruelty to which he gave himself up.