The chart clearly depicts the military disposition of the town and port’s defences, marking barracks, the bomb battery, island battery as well as anchorages and channels.  The imposing Governors House shown on the map still exists and is now the National Palace.  Whether this plan had been drawn by Lieutenant Patrick Leslye of the Royal Navy with the intention of the British either attacking or defending the town is unclear.  Leslye is listed in British Admiralty records as being active in British waters in between 1763-1776.  For him to have been part of the British support for Dessalines in the 1800s would suggest him to be either a very old and un-ambitious naval lieutenant 25 years after the records place him in British waters at the same rank.  Either that or this survey dates to an earlier time, perhaps the 1790s when the British had trading interests with the region.

In all of its history Hispaniola or Haiti has had to endure not just constant invasion and political upheaval but also some of the most devastating natural disasters ever recorded.