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  Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

The Administration Of Justice At The Fortress Of Louisbourg (1713-1758)

1741

• Archives Départementales, Charente-Maritime, B, Liasse 6113, pièces 3-10, August 16, 1741, Ships Ville de Bayone and Saint-Jean

August 16, 1741

Between eight and nine in the evening of Sunday, 13 August, Michel Pelegrin, aged 24, was dining below decks on his ship the Marie Julienne, while two of his shipmates, Guillaume Glonaguen, aged 25, and Jacques LeQuair, aged 16, rested in bunks or hammocks in the same area. Glonaguen testified: 

... being in bed on the said ship, he heard that the crew of Sr. Cadou, ship's captain, was passing along the side of the said ship Marie Julienne in its canot singing, which led him to get up and go Up on deck.

Pelegrin carried on the story: 

at the same time he saw a pirogue with one man in it passing silently alongside the said ship Marie Julienne. As soon as the man noticed the witness and the others, he moved away from the ship and took his pirogue under the ensign of the ship Saint Jean which belongs to Sieur Larreguy. From there he went near the ship Ville de Bayonne, which he circled. After a long time he returned to the ship Saint-Jean and having attached his pirogue, he climbed aboard the said ship. 

By this time Pelegrin and the others were suspicious, and when they saw the man lower the Saint-Jean's ensign and leave the ship with it, four of them jumped into their shallop and gave chase. They caught the pirogue and after being joined by another shallop from shore, took the suspected thief and the pirogue to a naval vessel anchored nearby. 

At the subsequent trial, it became clear that no crime bad been committed. The man in the pirogue was a local tailor who had gone to the Ville de Bayonne to lower its flag, as a favour to its guardian who had gone ashore due to illness. He had only stopped at the Saint-Jean because he noticed that its ensign had also been left flying. Still, the incident hints both at the liveliness of the harbour and at the quiet shipboard life of sailors in harbour. Two men dozing at eight in the evening probably welcomed the diversion of a few sailors singing as they passed. (The singers were probably returning to their ship for the night, though the Saint-Jean and the Ville de Bayonne were still deserted). The trial also illustrates the polyglot nationalities of the seamen who visited Ile Royale. The men of the Marie Julienne testified in Breton Gaelic, translated by their captain. A soldier was found to translate the Portugeuse of the Ville de Bayonne's guardian, and the suspected thief was a Spanish Basque. French, English, Spanish, German (spoken by some members of the Karrer regiment), Portugeuse, Breton, Basque and Micmac could all have been heard along the Louisbourg quay. [Christopher Moore, "Harbour Life and Quay Activities," (1977) in Second Draft Report, Contract Research 1977, Unpublished Report H F 39R (Fortress of Louisbourg, 1977), pp. 10-11.]