To James Madison from Louis-Marie Turreau, 15 July 1806
From Louis-Marie Turreau
A Baltimore le 15 Juillet 1806.
Monsieur,
J’ai l’honneur de vous addresser, Sous ce pli, quatre pièces qui vous instruiront de l’outrage d’un nouveau genre que Se Sont permis, vis-a-vis d’un Corsaire français, deux Bâtimens armés, et appartenant à des Négotiants de Baltimore.1
Je ne ferai aucune réflexion Sur cet évènement; et j’attendrai, avant d’en rendre compte a mon Gouvernement, le résultat des mesures que croira devoir prendre le vôtre, Monsieur, pour atteindre & punir d’une manière exemplaire, les auteurs de cet attentat.
J’apprends qu’un des bâtiments qui a attaqué le Corsaire, est encore dans le port de Baltimore. Agréez, Monsieur, une nouvelle assurance de ma haute considération
Turreau
CONDENSED TRANSLATION
Has the honor to enclose four documents which will inform JM of a new kind of outrage that two armed ships belonging to Baltimore merchants have committed on a French cruiser. Makes no comment on this event and will not report it to his government until he sees the results of the measures that JM’s government will take to apprehend and exemplarily punish the perpetrators of this assault. Has learned that one of the ships that attacked the cruiser is still in the port of Baltimore.
RC and enclosures (DNA: RG 59, NFL, France, vol. 2–3). RC in a clerk’s hand, signed by Turreau; docketed by Wagner. For enclosures, see n. 1.
1. The first enclosure (16 pp.; in French, with interlinear corrections by Wagner) comprised copies of statements regarding a 5 May 1806 attack on the French privateer Félicité near Acklins Island, Bahamas, by two allegedly American schooners under English colors. Marc Mouësan, captain of the Félicité, declared that the crew of one of the schooners continued to fire after he had surrendered, pillaged the Félicité and attempted to sink it, and violently repelled those of Mouesan’s crew who tried to board the schooner to save themselves from drowning. Eight men were killed and seven, including Mouesan, were wounded. Mouesan’s statement was witnessed on 6 May 1806 at Baracoa, Cuba, by Pierre Francois Valentin Maupassant, French agent at that city; Maupassant’s secretary, Pierre Rochefort; Jean Francois Saulnier, consignee of the Félicité; Eugène Lavaud; and first mate Pierre Massabot, surgeon Jean Garde, clerk Marcel Sailet, carpenter Louis Godin, and Jean Baptiste Larrey of the Félicité. On the same day the same persons witnessed the declaration of M. Martin, boatswain of the Félicité, that the primary schooner in the attack was the “Esclip” [Eclipse] of Baltimore, that its owner also had an armed brig to protect U.S. commerce with Haiti, and that Martin had recognized one of its crew members. The witnesses further certified that they had inspected the Félicité in the Baracoa harbor and found it heavily damaged, with much of its equipment missing. On 12 May 1806 Massabot, Sailet, Garde, Godin, Larrey, and five other members of the Félicité’s crew appeared at the office of Jean Baptiste Couet de Montarand, French agent at Santiago de Cuba, where Massabot submitted the above documents to record and protest the attack, confirmed Mouesan’s report, and stated that Mouësan had subsequently ordered him to take the Félicité to Santo Domingo, but that he had put in at Santiago de Cuba because the ship was no longer seaworthy. Sailet, Garde, Godin, and Larrey confirmed Massabot’s statement; and all requested that a list of the killed and wounded be appended to the statement, which was done. Legation secretary Jacques Abraham Collier attested to the accuracy of the copy sent to Turreau, Couet de Montarand certified Collier’s signature, and acting U.S. consul Andrew Hadfeg certified Couet de Montarand’s. Turreau certified the accuracy of the copy sent to JM, which nevertheless contained numerous spelling and grammatical errors corrected by Wagner.
The second enclosure (2 pp.; in French) was a copy of the 12 May 1806 declaration in Couet de Montarand’s office of Alexandre Petiton, cabin boy on the Félicité, who deposed under oath that one of the schooners involved in the recent attack was the “Cliff” [Eclipse], owned by a Mr. Tenant of Baltimore, and that it had previously battled another French privateer. The third enclosure (4 pp.; in French) was a copy of a claim for damages to the Félicité, filed with Couet de Montarand on 13 May 1806 by Louis Gobert and Jean Marc Nicholas, French refugees from Saint-Domingue, residents of Santiago de Cuba, and co-owners, with Mouesan and Jean Forest, of the privateer. They claimed 31,400 gourdes, in Caribbean currency, for cash and other items taken from the ship, indemnities to the families or owners of the freemen and slaves who were killed, and treatment of the wounded; and 200,000 gourdes as the estimated value of the prizes the Félicité would have taken had it not been disabled by the schooners. The fourth enclosure (4 pp.; in French), dated 13 May 1806, documented Gobert and Nicholas’s request of Couet de Montarand that the Félicité be inspected once again and the damages recorded; and the report of their suggested inspectors, two ship carpenters and two ship captains who were also French refugees from Saint-Domingue, that the vessel was not seaworthy and that the damage appeared to have been deliberate. Each of the three latter enclosures was certified like the first. The cover sheet bears Wagner’s docket, with his note: “The originals of these documents were sent to the District Atty. at Baltimore; and the last 10 pages were not compared with the originals.”