tyranny once and for all. In June of that same year, Duarte, who considered necessary it for the next stage of the cause, entrusted Mella to return to Santo Domingo with the mission to disseminating the political ideas advocated by the revolutionaries. Thus, in July 1843, Mella departed from Les Ceyes, and moved to the Central Cibao to continue promoting his republican Ideals for independence. However, Hérard, who was now the president of Haiti, learned of the true motives of Mella and his companions, and traveled to the eastern part of the island to arrest the conspirators. He would imprison Mella in Port-au-Prince, where he remained for two months. However, in this very city a rebellion erupted against Hérard, who was only able to dominate with the help of Mella and the incarcerated veterans whom he freed. But with Duarte, who by now had been exiled, out of the picture, and with their revolutionary plans now made aware to the Haitians, some of his followers felt that their cover was blown, to which Mella immediately responds by shouting: Seizing the moment, Mella and his followers marched up to Santo Domingo, captured the eastern part of the island, leading the storming of St. Giles Fort by Dominican forces and formally declared its independence from Haiti and the proclamation of the Dominican Republic in February 1844. Declaration of Dominican independence Sources vary on how the events of the "blundebuss" shot transpired. It is said that on the night of February 27, 1844, when he was reunited with other conspirators at Puerta de La Misericordia (Mercy Gate), Matías Ramón Mella fired a shot to end the hesitation that threatened to bring failure. He fired his blunderbuss and the Patriots marched toward the stronghold of San Gennaro (today Conde Gate), where another patrician, Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, proclaimed to the world the birth of the Dominican Republic. A testimony, written by Eustache Juchereaux Saint Denys, a member of the French consul in Santo Domingo, who had heard the famous blunderbuss, writes: José María Serra de Castro, one of the founders of La Trinitaria, who was an author of one of the main historical sources of the 1844 revolution, wrote that once Duartistas and Febreristas met at La Misercordia, they found that the number of attendees was less than expected. He explains: However, Don Manuel de Jesús Galván, a politician and author, narrates those events