The English cannonaded Fort Byzoton and landed troops at the Lamentin, and Saint-Rémy says the fort fell through Montbrun’s carelessness.

But the English still threatened Port-au-Prince; and their squadron, composed of two ships of the line of 74 guns, one of 84, another of 50, six corvettes or frigates, 12 transport vessels, and many schooners carrying fourteen hundred and sixty-four men, had entered the waters of the port. The commission, with little confidence in Montbrun since the scuffle of 17 March, recalled Colonel Martial Besse from his command of Jacmel. On 31 May two ships cannonaded Fort Byzoton, which Marc-Borno commanded, and ran to land at the Lamentin, on the Cottes plantation, three hundred English under the orders of Colonel Spencer and five hundred men of colonial troops under the orders of the baron de Montalembert. Martial Besse passed in front of Fort Byzoton on 13 prairial (1 June) to answer the summons of the commission; he was astonished to see no sentinel on the ramparts and no advance guard on the approaches (1).