The following year, Boisrond-Canal retired from the military to his farm in Frères, a short distance from Pétionville, and was elected to the Senate of Haiti.
General Michel Domingue was elected president in 1874, and yielded success in securing a treaty of friendship with the Dominican Republic, but Haiti's domestic financial situation was devastating.
According to Jacques Nicolas Léger: Monplaisir Pierre, with gun in hand, met the soldiers who were sent to arrest him; he made an energetic resistance and in defending the entrance to his house was killed in the fight which ensued; Brice, who had also made a brave defense, was successful in reaching the Spanish Consulate, where he died from the effects of a bullet wound in the thigh.
Boisrond Canal, who was living on his plantation at Frères, a short distance from Pétionville, was fortunate enough to be able to make his escape before the arrival of those who were commissioned to arrest him, and sought shelter in the United States Legation, which was then situated at Turgeau, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.
"I must confess that the presence of a thousand armed men around my country residence…with discontent stamped on their faces and Henry rifles in their hands does not quite give the best possible ground to my hope," he wrote to Fish.
Despite incurring the wrath of his superiors in Washington, Bassett put all of his credibility on the line: I am not unaware that the ground taken in my several despatches…may not be in accord with the requirements of public law… but circumstances seemed to crowd in upon me without warning, and in such a way as to leave me almost no choice.
Men maddened by passion, inflamed, as I am credibly informed, by rum, and elated by consciousness of armed power, were pursuing their fellow countrymen with red-handed violence.
The nightly rhythm of loud taunts and screams, beating of metal objects, and general nuisance kept the family huddled inside trying to gain a few hours of restless sleep.
But Fish's pique at his Minister and his continued discussions with Preston, who lobbied hard against sending a ship, left the situation unresolved.
"It has been determined to apply to the Navy Department to order a man of war to Port-au-Prince with a view to your protection from insult," Fish wrote to Bassett.
"[citation needed] As the ship was preparing to leave, Haitian Ambassador Preston rushed to tell Fish that Domingue was ready to capitulate.
After his departure, Bassett telegrammed the Department of State informing them that the crisis had finally passed: "Refugees amicable embarked and soldiers withdrawn from around my premises yesterday.