Port-au-Prince. The Riviériste conspirators fail to raise the town and leave for Léogane.

The conspirators above all had it spread about that Pierrot intended to exterminate the men of color or, at the least, to relegate them to the lowest social and political rank. Their plan consisted of threats, used above all toward the undecided or the indifferent, to whom the propagandists said that those who took no part in the rising planned against the judgment, in favor of Rivière Hérard, would be punished with death. It had been agreed to attempt a sudden stroke at Port-au-Prince, to fall back on Léogane in case of failure, and to strive to hold out there until the arrival of Rivière Hérard, who was to be sent for from Kingston.

General Riché, who commanded the four corps of the guard, kept a close watch on the doings of the conspirators, who met not only in the town in several houses but also extra muros at the house of citizen Juste, one of the chief among them. They nonetheless tried to win over to their cause general Riché himself, who made known to the commandant of the arrondissement the approach they had made to him. Fifi Branche d’Or, one of the conspirators, strove to enlist colonel Beaugé, who denounced him to the commandant of the place. He had just tried without success to shake the loyalty of battalion commander Jean-François, commandant of the Fort-National, whom the government raised to the rank of colonel. He was arrested on 17 September, in the afternoon; but he managed to escape from the office of the place, where he had been held.

The Council of the Secretaries of State, presided over by citizen J. Paul, secretary of state for the Interior and charged with War and the Navy in the absence of general Hyppolite, who had left for Le Cap, met and decided that no action would be taken against the conspirators until they had declared themselves.

At nightfall many of the agents of the plot, men of obscure condition, ran through the town crying: “Shut the doors! shut the doors!” The keenest alarm spread on every side among the citizens. At eight o’clock in the evening of the 17th the conspirators, some sixty in number, gathered at the spot called Croix-Martyrs, near the savanna of the government, and sent emissaries to the chiefs of the principal posts of the town, who remained faithful to their duty. Seeing the town calm and not answering their call, they abandoned the savanna of the government without being molested and took the road to Léogane. The authorities had not judged it prudent to attack them, because they were not well assured of the feelings that moved the citizens of Port-au-Prince, and they preferred to see them go off, carrying with them the unfortunate impression that the populations must receive of their failure in the capital.