 Yet the French presence in the region continued to grow, and soon afterward, a new city was founded to the south, Léogâne.While the first French presence in Hôpital, the region later to contain Port-au-Prince was that of the "flibustiers"; as the region became a real French colony, the colonial administration began to worry about the continual presence of these pirates.While useful in repelling Englishmen intent on encroaching upon French territory, they were relatively independent, unresponsive to orders from the colonial administration, and a potential threat to it.