 On 23 September , Rowley and Keating planned another landing under cover of the guns of the Nereide to drive off the French reinforcements . On landing , however , it was discovered that the French force had disappeared . Lacking support for a counterattack from the local landowners , who favoured a return to the monarchy , Des Bruslys was unwilling to order an assault which he deemed would have inevitably led to an unnecessary bloodbath . Instead , he ordered his forces to abandon Saint @-@ Paul and retire to Saint @-@ Denis during the night . Without support from his commanding officer , Captain St @-@ Michel , commandant of Saint @-@ Paul , agreed to surrender the town entirely , withdrawing his remaining forces under a flag of truce . The agreed truce lasted five days , during which the British force loaded their ships with French government provisions , equipment , military and naval stores and those cargoes from captured British ships that had not been burnt by Willoughby . The French made no effort to prevent this , Des Bruslys having committed suicide some days before , torn between his refusal to surrender the island to the British and his reluctance to order a bloody battle for what he regarded to be an " open island " . 
