The commissioners’ squadron bombarded Port-au-Prince, Pétion’s battery on the Morne-Pelé fired on Fort Robin, and Borel fled the town.

The battle began at eight o’clock in the morning and lasted until half past two (2). Polvérel and Sonthonax, in full costume, walked about on the quarterdeck during the action. The *America* took several red-hot shot in her chains, where the fire even caught. It was got under control (1). One of the first victims of Borel’s furies was his brother Augustin. The latter went wherever the danger was most terrible, while the other, lying on a mattress in the hall of the *municipalité*, busied himself only with dominating and paralyzing the wills of a few good men. A cannonball carried away his horse and took off both his legs. The same ball fell upon a cart carrying powder cartridges and blew it up; this explosion caused that of another cart, also loaded with cartridges. Fate pursued Augustin; carried into a house, he saw a ball come and shatter the back of his bed. He asked to be carried into a ditch; he was scarcely there when a third ball covered him with earth; people hastened to his aid, but he had just been smothered (2).

Pétion, from the Morne-Pelé, was bombarding Fort Robin, which was defended by a man named Jamain, commanding a battalion of the national guard (3). Everything was ready for the assault when Borel, Binsse and their aides-de-camp went out at four in the afternoon by the Petit-Paradis gate; escorted by three or four hundred enslaved men who had just won distinction with them, they made for Jacmel, where the *municipalité* received them honorably and sent them off to Jamaica. In this flight they had run the greatest dangers, across rocks and the most frightful precipices that human foot ever trod.