[ANTILLES - AMERIQUE] Manuscrit inédit de 189 pages d’un officier de marine français. [Souvenirs de marine, 1812-1823]

Unpublished manuscript logbook kept by a French naval officer, an eyewitness to the celebrated action between the Aréthuse and HMS Amelia (1813), and to the campaigns that accompanied the restoration of French authority in the West Indies.

Unpublished autograph manuscript of 189 pages (the first 31 paginated, the remainder unnumbered), kept by an anonymous French naval officer and covering, without interruption, the period from 25 November 1812 to 4 May 1823.

Contemporary half tan calf, smooth spine decorated with repeated gilt rolls and naval ornaments, burgundy calf lettering-piece, brown paper-covered boards. Spine renewed and restored, occasional waterstaining affecting the greater part of the leaves.

The manuscript opens with the technical particulars and crew list of the frigate Le Rubis, commanded by Commander Ollivier (capitaine de frégate), followed by those of the Aréthuse, under the command of Captain (capitaine de vaisseau) Bouvet. It then begins, on 25 November 1812, a day-by-day journal from the departure of the two frigates from the roads of Saint-Nazaire. Over the course of the following decade, its author served successively aboard the Rubis, the Aréthuse, the Illyrienne, the Hermione, the transport vessel La Normande - on which he completed two campaigns - the brigs L'Isère and Le Railleur, and finally the corvette L'Hébé.

Exceptionally rich in nautical detail - manoeuvres, courses steered, sea conditions, and vessels encountered or captured - the narrative unfolds in two distinct phases. The first recounts the commerce-raiding campaign waged against British shipping off the Cape Verde Islands and the West African coast between 1812 and 1814. The second follows its author to the West Indies, North America, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, through a succession of missions that intersect with several notable episodes of the period: the restoration of French possession of Guadeloupe in December 1814, the transport of troops to the colony in 1816, an oath of allegiance to Napoleon sworn at New York in May 1815, an anchorage at Bourbon Island in June 1817, and a passage off Gibraltar in June 1819.

Extracts: “On the 28th [November 1812] we captured an English brig [...]. The Aréthuse took possession of her and lost one of her boats, the sea being too rough. The vessel, of about 200 tons, mounted 8 guns and carried a crew of 12 men. She was laden with dried fruit and was sailing from Málaga to London; she also carried Alicante wine. The commanding officer [of the Rubis] ordered her to be set on fire, the sea being too rough for anything to be salvaged [...].

On the morning of the 12th [December], the Aréthuse boarded an American schooner bound from New York to Nantes, laden with cotton and coffee; she was allowed to continue her voyage after taking our letters for France.” (pp. 5-7).

“On 24 December we captured a large Portuguese three-master. She was called the Delfina, of 400 tons, sailing from Lisbon to Pernambuco [present-day Recife, Brazil], laden with wine, cloth, trade goods and carrying 40 passengers; she had a crew of 30 men and mounted ten 8-pounder guns.” (p. 9).

“[On 6 February 1813] the Aréthuse, having pursued [an] English frigate with advantage until evening, lost sight of her during the night and did not regain contact until the following day [...]. When she had come within pistol-shot, the Aréthuse fired a broadside, to which the enemy replied [...]. The action lasted from 7.45 until 10 o'clock, the fire of the Aréthuse proving superior to that of the English frigate. Captain Bouvet then attempted to board her in turn, but with his braces and bowlines cut, and his rigging and sails riddled with shot, he was unable to reach the enemy [...]. In the course of the engagement, the Aréthuse lost 22 men killed and 28 wounded.” (pp. 22-24).

This engagement, remembered as the Action of 7 February 1813, pitted the Aréthuse against HMS Amelia, commanded by Captain Frederick Paul Irby, off the Los Islands on the coast of Guinea. One of the fiercest frigate actions of the Napoleonic Wars, it was immortalised a few years later by Louis-Philippe Crépin in a large painting now preserved at the Palace of Versailles.

A precious unpublished first-hand account, written in a clear and remarkably legible hand, covering more than a decade of service in the French Navy. Through the daily observations of an anonymous officer unfold the final commerce-raiding campaigns of the Empire, the most celebrated action fought by the Aréthuse, and the operations that accompanied the restoration of French authority in the West Indies following the Napoleonic Wars.