Deposition - Francois Ernaud

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Deposition – Francois Ernaud (at Martinique) - 27 Apr 1718

Deposition – Francois Ernaud - 27 Apr 1718

April 27, 1718. La Concorde de Nantes taken and pillaged by the forbans. ADLA B 4578 f ° 56v & s. (3 sheets photocopied).

The Concorde of Nantes, plundered and taken by the pirates.

From April 27 (1718).

There appeared the sieur François Ernaud, formerly lieutenant on the ship named La Concorde of Nantes of the port of 200 tons or about. The said ship, commanded by Pierre Dosset, first captain, and whose second captain Charles Baudin. The said vessel, armed with 16 guns and 75 crew, belonging to the Sieur René Montaudouin and others, and of whom the said Sieur Ernaud took the oath, he promised and swore to tell the truth.

Which has declared to us that his said vessel having been charged with the goods permitted for the coast of Guinea and other French islands, and being his said captain furnished with all the expeditions necessary to accomplish their said voyage.

He left the lower part of the river on March 24, 1717, and in bad weather they were obliged to release under Groix on the 28th of that month, where they anchored about eight o'clock in the evening and on the 29th following about 9 o'clock in the morning the heavy weather obliged them to spin their ropes at the tip and abandon their second anchor weighing about 14 to 1500 pounds and the 12 to 13 inches thick, brand new, never-wetted cable with a length of 120 fathoms. They were thrown on the bench of goodwill, where the ship was hit three times.

From there they set sail to the sea and came to anchor on the island of Houedic on the 29th, where they anchored their great anchor and their brand-new cable, from 12 to 13 inches. On the 30th of that month they were forced to return to Mindin. Then by what diligence they did they recovered the cable and anchored above that they had slipped under Groix. At Mindin, they repaired a new cable 12 to 13 inches from their damaged ones. They took food and refreshments to replace those they had consumed. Then they set sail from Mindin the following April 12th.

On the 24th of that month, Jean Morel, a Provencal sailor without being able to save him ...

On the 6th of June arrived at Mesurade to make wood and water, whence they set out on the 18th of that month to go to Judah, where they anchored on the 8th of July, and where they made their treaties, and charged on the said ship the number of 516 black heads of all sexes and ages and fourteen ounces of powdered gold.

After which they set out from the place on the following October in order to go to Martinique and the French islands of America.

On the following 28th of November, at a distance of thirty or forty leagues from La Martinique, by the latitude of 14 ° 30 'north, they encountered at about 8 am, in a time of mist, two pirate ships, one of which was armed with 12 guns and equipped with 120 crewmen and the other armed with 8 guns and equipped with 30 men. The declarant said to have at 16 dead men of sickness including the one who had drowned and in addition 36 men of their said crew sick of scurvy and blood flow so that they were only 21 men to maneuver and conducting said vessel. So much so that the two forbidding boats having fired two volleys of cannon and musketry from them, and shouted to them to put their canoe in the sea. The said captain and officers and members of the crew being unable to defend themselves from the said forbans , they came on board the said pirates who took them to Bicoya, the Grenadines, where the declarant and all the other members of his crew were searched and visited and robbed them of their cargo and put the rest on said Island ashore.

And by the declaration of a chamber-boy of his crew, who declared to the said pirates that his captain and his officers had gold powder. What saw the said pirates threatened the declarant and his crew to cut their collar if they did not return the said gold powder. Now, as the said chamberlain belonging to the Sieur Martin, committed on the said ship, had declared them to them. Which said boy was named Louis Arrot of Nantes aged about 15 years or so who voluntarily surrendered with them. This obliged the declarant, together with the others, to deliver to them the gold powder, of which each had some in his own without understanding that which was freight, and had taken possession of all the clothes and clothes which had put them naked as well as of their said ship with all its cannon and gear that the said pirates have retained.

Further declares that the said pirates forcibly retained ten men of their crew, namely:

Charles Duval, native of Port Louis, pilot.

Jean Dubois. Gascon, surgeon major.

Marc Bourgneuf, second surgeon. Rochellois.

Claude Deshaies. 3rd surgeon.

Esprit Perrin, Master-Carpenter, native of Pellerin.

René Duval. 2nd carpenter, native of Nantes.

Jean Puloin. caulker.

Guillaume Creuzet, sailor, native of Brest.

Georges Bardeau, 2nd cook.

Jean Jacques. gunsmith

In addition, a negro who was a trumpeter passenger and married in Saint-Malo, whose declarant did not know the name, further said that four of their crew, including the aforementioned chambermaid, voluntarily surrendered to the pirates, know:

Nicolas Pommeraye. of Saint-Malo, patron of boat.

François Derouet of La Rochelle, sailor.

Joseph Mortepan called La Mornaie, voluntary, of Saint-Père en Retz.

After which the said pirates gave to the declarant and the rest of his crew both sick and healthy one of their boats to lead them to Martinique with the blacks whom the pirates abandoned on the island Bicoya where thirty two whites and two hundred and forty six blacks embarked in their boat to go to Martinique where the declarant arrived on October 7 [december 7] following. Having put the blacks on the ground and given order for their subsistence and guard. He returned from Martinique on the tenth of that month to the said island of Bicoya, to recover the rest of the blacks whom the pirates had abandoned there, and where they arrived on the 13th of that month, and at which place they again unloaded in the said pirate ship twelve whites and fifty two blacks to return with the others to La Martinique, where they arrived on the said month in which the captain of the said vessel La Concorde, by order of justice, dismissed and paid all his crew for the proceeds of the said blacks. Said more than the boat the pirates had given them, the justice of Martinique seized it and had it sold by auction the sum of three thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds or about whose justice until the ownership of the boat is claimed by someone.

Said that the vessel was of Bermudan construction, wearing 40 tons or so. After that, the declarant joined as a passenger with Pierre Sagory, second pilot, and Pierre Perré, a cooper on the ship The Holy Spirit of Canada, which passed them at La Rochelle, where they landed on the 5th of this month. has requested that the present declaration be verified by the aforementioned Sailors on the said Concorde, whom he has summoned, and to whom the said declaration has been read ...

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