They divided the country between them and in the confused political situation that followed a number of minor fiefdoms appeared, including one ruled by warlord Jérôme-Maximilien Borgella in the department of Sud.

The superior seamanship and discipline on Southampton prevented Gaspard from boarding her with the larger crew under his command, and within half an hour Heureuse Réunion was dismasted and battered.

From 1791 onwards, a lengthy and bloody conflict known as the Haitian Revolution raged in Saint-Domingue, which in which armies of Black troops led by Toussaint Louverture and then Jean-Jacques Dessalines secured independence from France by 1804, the first Caribbean territory to do so.

[4] Dessalines subsequently established himself as emperor of the First Empire of Haiti, but his reign was cut short in 1806 when his closest advisors, Henri Christophe and Alexandre Pétion organised his assassination.

[1] Attempting to break out on 14 April, Troude led his main squadron northwest towards Puerto Rico while two en flûte frigates, Félicité and Furieuse, slipped out northeast to Basse-Terre, arriving there safely.

Troude's squadron was defeated on 17 April, but Félicité and Furieuse remained at Basse-Terre until 14 June, when they attempted to break out and return to France laden with trade goods.

Gaspard then armed Heureuse Réunion with 44 cannon, took on board a motley crew of over 600 men, a mixture of Haitians, Frenchmen, Americans and other nationalities, and began cruising in the Gulf of Gonâve.

[9] The British observational warship stationed off Haiti at this time was the frigate HMS Southampton under the command of Captain Sir James Lucas Yeo, who was under strict orders to respect the ships of Christophe and Pétion, but not those of the minor warlords that had emerged along the Haitian coast.

[10] Within half an hour the highly efficient gunners on Southampton had knocked down the mainmast and mizzenmast on Heureuse Réunion, leaving her unable to manoeuvre and vulnerable to repeated pounding at close range.

Despite the severe damage the Haitian ship suffered, her crew continued to fire cannon at irregular intervals for 45 minutes, each shot prompting a broadside from Southampton.

American privateers threatened British trade routes and Royal Navy ships were sent out to intercept them, including Southampton, which was wrecked in the Bahamas during an anti-privateer patrol in November 1812.

[13] There were no further significant actions in the region during the Napoleonic Wars, with the presence of Royal Navy patrols deterring any large scale French or American operations in the Caribbean.