France: Decrees on Trade 1793-1810

L. Ferrand, General of Brigade, Commander-in-chief of St. Domingo, acting as Captain General, and a member of the Legion of Honor.

Experience has, for too much time, taught the General that all kind of regard and modification towards those scoundrels who maintain the rebellion in Hispaniola by furnishing every thing necessary to the rebels, against the will and approbation of their respective Governments, and who, by those acts of cupidity, dishonor the flags they sail under; and finding the necessity of putting a stop to rapacity, and to treat them as pirates, has proclaimed and proclaims:

Art. 1.� All individuals whomsoever found on board of any vessel or vessels, allies or neutrals, bound to any ports in Hispaniola occupied by the rebels, shall suffer death.

Those found on board of any vessel, allies or neutrals, coming out of any ports in Hispaniola occupied by the rebels, shall suffer death.

Those found at two leagues distance of any port of the coast of Hispaniola occupied by the rebels, shall suffer death.

Art. 2. The General informs, that all prisoners made in those different cases shall be brought into one of the ports of Hispaniola occupied by the French, to be tried by military commission, which is to pronounce sentence.

Art. 3. This proclamation shall be put into execution on the 1^st Flor�al, 21^st April;) and, until that time, all the preceding proclamations, in order to prevent all kinds of communication with the coast of Hispaniola occupied by the rebels, shall be strictly executed.

Art. 4. Of this present proclamation, registered at the colonial inspection, one hundred copies are printed, published, and posted up in all the chief places around the east part of Hispaniola, and all necessary steps shall be taken to its publicity in all the islands and the continent of America.

Done at the head-quarters of the General of St. Domingo, the 16^th Pluviose, year the 13^th, (5^th February, 1805.)

The General Commander-in-chief of St. Domingo, acting as Captain General, and member of the Legion of Honor,

L. FERRAND.

Placed on the Napoleon Series March 2003

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