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1793-12-20

Rigaud placed Pétion in charge of his artillery before Léogane, which had just surrendered to the English.

Haitian

Rigaud was preparing a fresh march against Jérémie when he learned of the successive surrender of so many different points to the enemies of republican France. This enterprising man marched unexpectedly against Léogane. Though he had only undisciplined troops, drawn from the former bands of Martial Pémerle and Jacques Formont, he hoped to take the town with the help of some movement within. He set his headquarters on the Buteau plantation, from which on 15 December he began to cannonade and bombard the place. But he lacked a skillful artilleryman. Polvérel sent him Pétion. This captain, despite the weakness left by a long convalescence, left Les Cayes on 15 December (1); on the 20th Rigaud handed him the direction of his artillery. But the rebel town had just surrendered to the English; Rigaud raised the siege and went back down to the South, while Pétion returned with his company to Port-au-Prince, which the English were threatening by land and by sea.

Source  ·  p. 225 Joseph Saint-Rémy (des Cayes), Pétion et Haïti: étude monographique et historique, tome 1 (Paris: chez l'auteur, 1854), p. 225; English translation, Rasanblaj.