Daniel Krieg on the (1782) “Indus”…

I’ve recently had some interesting back-and-forth email correspondence about the Nageon de l’Estang treasure documents with independent Swiss researcher Daniel Krieg. In recent years, Daniel has made his own fresh attack on this long-standing historical mystery, and his particular interpretation of many key aspects of those documents has led him to draw his own conclusions.

Even though I (personally) think these conclusions are probably wrong, I thought it would be good to work through some of his argument’s component pieces, because – whether he’s right or wrong – they all cast an interesting light on the whole subject, as well as available historical sources for the period.

So today let’s look at Daniel’s (1782) “Indus”…

The “Indus”

In the first of the three “Butin” treasure documents, we read (in Loys Masson’s version, but the other variants aren’t too far off) the following part-sentence:

LM:                        j’ai naufragé dans une crique près des Vaquois et
LM: j’ai remonté une rivière et déposé  dans un caveau   les richesses de l'Indus
LM: et marqué B.N. mon nom.

Because of this text, Daniel Krieg has spent (as many other researchers have done) a lot of time looking for the specific ship called the Indus from which B.N.’s “richesses” came. Crucially, he thinks that this was in fact the British ship Indus that was captured by the French frigates Bellone and Fine on 24th July 1782.

It would seem to be a historically-grounded claim, but does the evidence actually support it? Let’s have a look…

Suffren’s journal de bord

The Bellone and Fine were French frigates in the Bailli de Suffren’s squadron: this had been sent to control the Indian coastline during the Anglo-Dutch War in India that had started in December 1780. A brief description of the Bellone returning on 26th July 1782 appeared in Suffren’s journal de bord:

Dans la matinée, la Bellone a mouillé et a rendu compte que la Fine avait pris un brick, parti de Madras il y avait près de deux mois, portant le colonel Horn à Négapatnam, destiné à commander l’armée du Sud. Le capitaine du brick appelé l’Indou ayant eu ordre de gagner Négapatnam par le large pour nous éviter, n’avait jamais pu remonter.

In the morning, the Bellone anchored and reported that the Fine had captured a brig, which had left Madras nearly two months previously to try to carry Colonel Horn to Negapatam for him to take command of the Army of the South. Even though the captain of the brig (called the Indou) had received orders to reach Negapatam by sea to avoid us [Suffren’s fleet], he had never been able to get [past the sea blockade] to its destination.

In Suffren’s journal de bord entry for the following day (27th July 1782), we then see the Fine itself turn up with the aforementioned brig:

La Fine a rallié l’escadre avec la prise l’Indou.

The Fine rejoined the squadron with the prize ship Indou.

There is no further direct mention of the Indou in the journal de bord, which is – I presume – why Daniel thinks that this could have been the Indus of the letter. However, reading the next few entries forward from there, what happens next is that Suffren’s entire squadron sails away on 1st August 1782:

Au jour, signal de désaffourcher. Nous laissons au mouillage la Fortitude, qui doit aller au Pégou, et deux prises pour être vendues. A 11 heures, toute l’escadre a mis sous voile.

At daylight, signal to weigh anchor and leave. We leave behind at anchor the Fortitude, which must go onwards to Pégou [Bago in modern Myanmar], plus two prize ships to be sold. At 11 o’clock the whole squadron was under sail.

Obviously, I’m going to point out that I don’t think a prize brig would have sailed onwards with Suffren’s mighty French squadron: and also that I don’t think it would sailed onwards to the Ile de France.

Charles Cunat’s account

On p.192 of Charles Cunat’s (1852) book on the Bailli de Suffren, we read a couple of additional details (Cunat had access to many more maritime sources than merely de Suffren’s journal de bord):

En même temps, la Fine ralliait l’escadre avec un brick anglais, chargé de riz pour Négapatnam, qui avait à bord le colonel Horn, nommé au commandement de l’armée de Tanjaour, […]

At the same time, the Fine joined the squadron with an English brig, loaded with rice for Negapatam, which had on board Colonel Horn, appointed to take command of the army of Tanjaour, […]

The most important feature to note here is that, somewhat like a Spanish pepper, the brig Indou was stuffed not with treasure but with rice.

I should also perhaps add here that the capture of the brig Indou wasn’t a significant enough naval action to warrant a mention in H. C. M. Austen’s “Sea Fights and Corsairs of the Indian Ocean”.

But… was the Indus even British?

I suppose the biggest problem I have with this is the whole presumption that the Indus was some kind of British East India Company treasure ship. The letter writer tells us right at the start:

j’ai naufragé dans une crique près des Vaquois

That is, the writer himself was saying that he “was shipwrecked in a creek near to Vacoas” – he didn’t find a shipwreck, he was himself shipwrecked.

Given that the (so-called) Golden Age of Piracy had fizzled out nearly twenty years previously, it is an uncomfortably long hop, step and jump forward from “j’ai naufragé” to conclude that the (French) letter writer can only have been a pirate who had taken control of a British treasure ship, which had then been shipwrecked on the (presumably Mauritian) coast.

From my perspective, it is therefore vastly more likely that the ship to which the letter writer refers was actually a French ship upon which the letter writer was working: more specifically, it was (given its name) probably from the Compagnie des Indes heading back from the East Indies towards Lorient.

In fact, I’d suggest that the right place to be looking for the real Indus / Indou would be in the Compagnie des Indes archives in Lorient, for ships that were expected back from the East around February 1748 (but that were instead lost in Indian Ocean during the Mauritian hurricane of January 1748).

[Update: I think I was too hasty in dismissing the idea of a prize brig. 1748 was just before the end of the 1st Carnatic War, and news of the peace didn’t reach the Indian Ocean until very late in that year. So an English ship could very easily have been captured by French warships just before the Mauritian hurricane of January 1748, a research lead I’ll explore in my next post on the subject.]