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Minutes – Charles Mesnier (at Martinique) - 10 Dec 1717

Minutes – Charles Mesnier - 10 Dec 1717

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Secretary of State for the Navy - Correspondence to the arrival from Martinique 1717-1727: Feuquieres (François de Pas de Mazencourt, Marquis de), Governor General of the Windward Islands ◾ Correspondence ◦ Mesnier (Charles) the Navy to Martinique ◦ 1717

December 10, 1717

EN ANOM COL C8A 22 F ° 438

 

Content Overview

Confiscation of the English vessel stopped by Value (see folio 411); disputes over the proceeds and distribution of confiscations; request for instructions; measures taken to try to suppress foreign trade (a Field Clerk will be responsible for overseeing the day and night shores); arrival of Buttet, commanding the Surprenant, armed at Santo Domingo with the commission of M. de Chateaumorand, to retaliate against the Spanish ships; results of this cruise (three catches); arrival of the Peace, of Nantes, Captain Jean Hego, coming from Guinea with two hundred and three negroes; arrival of a ship commanded by Captain Pierre Dosset, of Nantes with two hundred and forty-six negroes (Dosset commanded the Concorde, which was taken by English forbans, details of this affair); demand for frigates to hunt forbanks; Nantes, captain Jean Leclerc, coming from Leogane.

 

At St. Pierre de La Martinique on the 10th of December 1717

Colony

Mr. Mesnier

...

I have the honor to inform the Council that Sr. Buttet Teaches of the King's Ships Captain of an Infantry Company in St. Domingue, marines at Fort Royal of this island Martinique on November 30th commanding the boat under the command of St. Domingue under the command of the Marquis of Chateumorand governor and lieutenant general of the French isles in the Wind, to run the Spanish vessels in repairs, for the reasons explained in the said commission of which it is attached copy. The said Sr. Buttet took during his race and led with him to the said Fort Royal, three battalions of which a Spaniard en route of the Goiera for the coast Saint Domingue load of bricks and some very commodity for about 5 or 600 piastres which were given as plunder and divided between the crew at the desire of the said commission; and two Englishmen, whom he had taken on the 26th of the last month of November last, who were in an anchorage of La Guadeloupe, called L'Ance Doree, one of which charged six horses and a bouriquet, and 13 negres or negresses large and small; and the other only of its east and a negro serving as cocq. the said Sr. Buttet having been unable to repair to St. Peter's because of the necessity of his buildings, I granted the 12th of this month an order to the lieutenant of the judge of the jurisdiction of the Fort Royal to take the declaration of the said Sr Buttet and do all the required procedures involving the two English boats until definitive judgment exclusively, then to be reported to me and to be ordered what it will belong.I did not think it necessary to take cognizance of what concerns the Spanish boat, of which Sr. Butet will endeavor as he will advise. I have the honor to send to the Council a copy of the declaration made by the said Sr. Buttet, on arriving at this isle, at the Gresse de la Jurisdiction of the said Fort Royal. I shall afterwards have the honor of informing the Council of what I shall have ordered concerning these two English prizes, in consequence of the information which is now being made.

Last November 30th, the ship La Paix de Nantes was ordered by Captain Jean Hego from the coast of Guynee with 203 negres, negresses, negrillons and negrittes, all in perfect health, which after the visit of the doctor and of the Chururgeon and the Revee of the clerk of the classes, I have allowed to land and make the sale in the ordinary.

The 7th of this month also arrived here a boat commanded by Captain Pierre Dosset of Nantes with 246 Negroes, Negroes, Negroes and Neglots. This captain had left Nantes on April 12th, commanding the ship La Concorde to go and treat negroes on the coast of Guinea where he had arrived on July 8th and, after having treated 516 pieces of negroes, left on October 2nd to make his back to this island.

But on November 28th, being 60 leagues from here by the 14 degrees 27 minutes of northern latitude, having been attacked by two English fortresses, one of 12 and the other of 8 armed guns of 250 men commanded by Edward English Tithe, was kidnapped by these pirates with 455 Negroes who remained to him who had degraded (?) said Dosset with his crew to the Grenadines on the island of Becoya [Bequia; “Crab Island”], close to Grenada, except 14 men having forcibly retained 10 and the four others having taken goodwill with the pirates who gave the said Dosset the boat in which he arrived here, said 246 negroes and another part of Negroes he does not know the number he left in said Becoya Island [Bequia; “Crab Island”] with part of its crew could not contain them in this boat without risking to lose a lot and which he goes to search in the same boat with a passport that Mr. de Feuquières sent him and of a crew role he also gave him for said boat.

Captain Dosset claims that these pirates gave 25 of his negroes to a small boat from this island that they had taken and looted and that they released.

Said Captain Dosset will undoubtedly do his diligences to request the return of these 25 Negroes.

I have the honor to send to the Council the statement made by the said Captain Dosset to the registry of this island, on arriving there. Boatmen who trade in Grenada here also reported seeing the vessel La Concorde in a bay on Île Saint-Vincent and that they burnt a ship and a boat whose funds were still on the water. These same boats were hunted by these pirates, from whom they escaped in favor of calms and their oars.

This will make known to the Council the necessity that the King would send two good frigates, well armed and fine sailors, to these seas.

The said 7th day of current also anchored in the harbor of the Fort Royal of this isle the ship Le Grand Soleil of Nantes commanded by Captain Jean LeClerc, who left the harbor of Leogane of Saint Domingue last 5th of October to go in France, and being on the 13th of November, at 130 leagues from the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, received a blow from the Wind, which obliged her to relinquish here, her ship making a great deal of water.

Mesnier

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