Portail Saint-Joseph. Fire consumes several houses near it; French crews help put it out.

The higher authority had it published that all the documents and packets addressed to each of the ministerial departments would be dispatched to Cap-Haïtien. A few days before, in the night of 10 to 11 November, fire had consumed several houses at Port-au-Prince near the St-Joseph gate. Without the help of the crews of two French ships of war in putting out the fire, the whole commercial quarter would have fallen prey to the flames. Yet during the disaster the French had been insulted in the crowd, so much was prejudice against them quietly stirred up by the government.