Was the Missing Corsair in the Legion d’Honneur?

Like a string of strangely distant pearls, details larded through Nageon de l’Estang letter BN3 seem to tell us a lot about its author (the person I call the “Missing Corsair”, who I now believe was not the person who wrote BN1 and BN2).

I’ll go through BN3 slowly, showing what I think we can infer from it:

BN3 Analysis

Beloved brother, I’ve been sick since the fall of Tamatave, […]

The Fall of Tamatave in 1811 was a hugely symbolic moment for the French: by then blockaded all too effectively in their European ports, this defeat marked the end of their ambitions in the Indian Ocean too. Effectively, Tamatave was where the French dreams of fighting on a world stage were finally shut down.

despite the care of my friend the commander.

The writer has a close personal relationship with his commander: which probably means he was an officier of some sort, rather than merely a matelot or (dare I say it) mousse.

I am weak, I fear death from one moment to the next, I wish to talk to you one last time dear Étienne and give you my greatest recommendations.

The writer’s brother is called Étienne.

When I am dead, Captain Hamon/Harmon will give you the little that I possess that I saved during my adventurous life at sea.

The people copying these letters obviously had some difficulty making out the name of the captain: however, I think we can infer from the rest of the letter that the writer’s captain was none other than Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin (later appointed Rear Admiral and Baron), and that the ship was very probably La Vénus.

You know, dear Étienne, that my life’s dream was to amass a fortune to bring back our family’s splendour.

It seems that the writer was from an old French family, quite possibly aristocrats who lost everything in the French Revolution. Unfortunately, that’s perhaps not a particularly telling clue: numerous aristos suffered the same sudden reverse of fortune at that time.

With the benevolence the First Consul showed me after a glorious feat of arms, I had hoped to return.

The “First Consul” was none other than Napoleon Bonaparte: and by far the most “glorious feat of arms” that took place in the Indian Ocean was the Battle of Grand Port (this is even commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe). And the ship that played the most central role in that was (you guessed it)… Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin’s La Vénus.

But as God will not allow me to perform this duty and I feel close to death, swear to me dear Étienne that you will execute my wishes. In my adventurous life before embarking on the Apollon,

The Apollon had a brief life as a corsair ship, doing well when commanded by Hodoul in 1797, before being captured in 1798. It would therefore seem likely that the writer of BN3 was on the Apollon when she was captured.

I was one of those corsairs who did so much harm to our enemies Spain and England. We made many splendid captures from them, but at our last battle with a large British frigate on the shores of Hindustan, the captain was wounded and on his deathbed

This has been hard to track down, but currently it seems likely to me that this was Captain Malroux’s Iphigénie, which blew up in a dramatic sea-battle at night. I have read (and transcribed) numerous accounts of this battle, and from these the captain’s whereabouts and manner of death are both not at all clear.

confided to me his secrets and his papers to retrieve considerable treasure buried in the Indian Ocean; and, having first made sure that I was a Freemason, asked me to use it to arm privateers against the English.

It is not currently known whether Malroux was a Freemason (this is something I’d like to check in Mauritius!): but given that plenty of other corsairs active in Mauritius at the same time had not long before joined a lodge in Port Louis, this would (on the surface) seem to be quite a likely scenario.

But I abhor this wandering life, so I decided to enlist permanently and wait for France to calm down before finding these treasures and return back there. Swear to me that your eldest son will carry out my wishes and one day return to our house with the fortune.

The writer’s brother Étienne has more than one son.

What happened to Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin?

This is best covered in this account from 1837:

Mais après trois quarts d’heure du combat le plus acharné, il se voit forcé d’amener son pavillon. Transporté à bord de la Boadicea, il fut conduit à Saint-Paul, où il obtint un bâtiment parlementaire sue lequel il s’embarqua avec son état-major et son equipage, et qui les débarqua à l’île de Bas, au mois de février 1811.

This is then followed immediately by a footnote telling the next part of the story:

Sur le compte rendu, par le capitaine general, de événements arrives à l’Ile-de-France, le ministre de la marine Decrès adressait au capitaine Hamelin la dépêche suivante:

Paris, le 27 décembre 1810.

“L’Empereur, monsieur, dans le compte que je me suis empressé de lui render des dernières operations de ses forces navales réunies à l’Ile-de-France, a donné une attention particulière aux details qui vous sont personnels.

“Sa Majesté a bien voulu remarquer que vous avez complété les succès que M. le capitaine du vaisseau Duperré avait obtenus dans les journées du 23 ay 25 août, et que vous avez ensuite attaqué et pris le frigate le Ceylan dans un combat corps à corps.

“Quels qu’aient été les événements qui ont suivi, Sa Majesté n’en a pas moins apprécié l’honourable défense que vous avez faites lorsque, désemparé par un précédent combat, vous avez été attaqué par des forces supérieures. Elle a daigné, en recompense de ces différentes actions qui toutes attestent votre habileté et votre bravoure, vous élever au grade de commandant de la Légion-d’Honneur.

“Sa Majesté a bien voulu également répandre ses graces sur les officiers qui vous ont si dignement secondé, et j’adresse à M. le capitaine general Decaen les décrets qui consacrent ces actes de satisfaction.

That is to say, Decrès wrote, His Majesty not only raised Hamelin to the level of “Commandant” in the Légion d’Honneur in honour of his “skill and bravery” (votre habileté et votre bravoure), he also expressed the wish that “the officers who assisted [Hamelin] so worthily” in the Battle of Grand Port should be similarly honoured (i.e. by entering them into the Légion d’Honneur). Hence his naval minister Decrès had written to General Decaen in Ile-de-France to ask him to make this so.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t actually going to be possible in the way Decrès hoped: unknown to him, Ile-de-France had already capitulated to the British on 3rd December 1810.

Hence at the time of the letter, Hamelin and his fellow prisoners of war were on a ship called the Bombay Merchant travelling via the Cape of Good Hope to drop them all off in France – they would arrive in early February 1811.

Which of Hamelin’s officers were inducted into the Légion d’Honneur?

Finally! We reach the most interesting question of the whole research thread.

And the answer is: I don’t yet know… but I’m trying really hard to find out.

I strongly suspect that if I could determine the names of all people who were inducted into (or raised a level) in the Légion d’Honneur on the 20th December 1810 (the specific date given in Hamelin’s file card entry there), we would find the names of all these officers. And one of those officers was – I now firmly believe – the same Missing Corsair who wrote the letter BN3 in mid-to-late 1811.

However, my current understanding is that the “Léonore” database in the Archives nationales has no index for date of honour. And so I suspect there is no easy or quick way to find the list of people entered into the Légion d’Honneur on any given date. (Unless you happen to know better, kind reader?)

(Incidentally, I aso trawled through the Bulletin des Lois looking for anything that might help with this search, but found nothing there either. Just so you know!)

As a result, I’m instead currently trying to identify documents in the English or French archives that might identify the list of prisoners of war carried on the Bombay Merchant, so that I can check these forward against the “Léonore” database’s well-used surname index. But this is proving very difficult too. *sigh*

Oh well: I guess if it was easy, people would have done this 10x over already. 🙂