Leclerc begins his invasion on February 3 with approximately seventeen thousand troops, landing the first five thousand at several points on the north coast; with him is Alexandre Pétion.

Villaret had arrived before Cap-Haïtien on February 3 and an attack by land and sea begins two days later.

General Henri Christophe carries out his orders, setting light to the town and slitting the throats of part of the white population.

Toussaint, with approximately twenty thousand men under his command, orders the black generals to raze the coast towns and retreat into the interior, but because of either disloyalty or poor communications the order is not universally followed.

Christophe burns Le Cap to ashes for the second time in ten years, but the French occupy Port-au-Prince before Jean-Jacques Dessalines can destroy it.