had slipped out of Cape François during a heavy squall; but the weather soon moderating, she was immediately discovered and pursued by the squadron. The chase continued about twenty hours, and the enemy was at length overtaken by Captain Walker, who, after a running fight of an hour and a half, ran the Vanguard alongside his opponeut, and compelled her to surrender.
After escorting his prize, and a French schooner of 16 guns and 60 men, which had been taken by the squadron near Port-au-Paix, to Jamaica, Captain Walker returned to his station off St. Domingo, and on the 1st Oct. summoned the town of St. Marc to surrender. On the following day General d’Henin, the Governor, sent off an officer to treat with him, and a convention was accordingly entered into, by which the French garrison, the Papillon corvette, a transport brig, and a schooner laden with ammunition, were surrendered to the Vanguard.
The situation of the French troops was the most deplorable it is possible to imagine; they were literally reduced to skeletons, having long subsisted on horse-flesh. To screen them from the threatened vengeance of the black General, Dessalines, Captain Walker received them on board his ship, and landed them in safety at Cape Nichola Mole; but as they were in all 1100 men, and remained in the Vanguard, her prizes and boats, for eight days, this act of humanity proved in the sequel of great prejudice to our officer in a pecuniary point of view, as he was thereby compelled to return to port for provisions at the very moment Cape François was about to surrender. However, during the fourteen weeks which he remained off that place, he had the satisfaction of considerably hastening so desirable an event, not only by his exertions in maintaining a most vigorous blockade, but by keeping up a constant correspondence with the black chiefs, and informing them of every occurrence at the Cape. And here it may be proper to observe, that while at St. Marc’s Captain Walker was so forcibly struck with the representations of General Dessalines, that one of his chiefs had deserted from him with a body of 2000 men, and taken possession of the plain near Cape François, by which he was enabled to furnish the European French in the city with ground provisions and fruit,
