The Wrecking of La Salle's Ship Aimable and the Trial of Claude Aigron (Charles N. Prothro Texana Series)

T H E W R E C K I N G OF LA SA L L E ’ S S H I P A I M A B L E AND THE T R I A L O F C L AU DE A I G R O N CHARLES N...

Author: Robert S. Weddle

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T H E W R E C K I N G OF LA SA L L E ’ S S H I P A I M A B L E AND THE T R I A L O F C L AU DE A I G R O N

CHARLES N. PROTHRO TEXANA SERIES

Shipwreck at Pass Cavallo. Drawing by Janice Courtney.

t 111111111111111

The Wrecking of

LA SA L L E’ S S HI P

AIMABLE A

A N D THE

A

Trial of Claude Aigron 111111111111111

By Robert S. Weddle Translations by François Lagarde

UNIVERSIT Y OF TEXAS PRESS, AUSTIN

Copyright © 2009 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2009 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weddle, Robert S. The wrecking of La Salle’s ship Aimable and the trial of Claude Aigron / by Robert S. Weddle; translations by François Lagarde. p. cm.—Charles N. Prothro Texana Series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-292-71940-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Aigron, Claude—Trials, litigation, etc. 2. La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de, 1643–1687—Trials, litigation, etc. 3. Trials—France—La Rochelle. 4. Aimable (Ship). 5. Shipwrecks—Law and legislation—France. 6. Liability for marine accidents—France. I. Title. II. Series. KJV135.A34W43 2009 345.44'026—dc22 2008043766

F OR P E G

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations viii Preface ix PART ONE: AIMABLE’S S TORY

1. Voyage of Destiny 5 2. Makings of Disaster 16 3. The Parting 23 4. The Lost Cause 30 PART T WO: THE EVIDENCE

5. La Salle’s Reports 43 A. The Official Account of the Shipwreck: Procès verbal 43 B. La Salle’s Letter to the Marquis de Seignelay 46

6. Charge and Rebuttal 51 7. The Hearing 62 8. The Summation 78 PART THREE: POS T SCRIPT

9. The Search for Aimable 99 Notes 111 Bibliography 125 Index 129

ILLUSTRATIONS

Shipwreck at Pass Cavallo Frontis The Port of La Rochelle 7 Signatures of La Salle and Jean Massiot le jeune 9 Map of Matagorda Bay 14 Minet’s map of Matagorda Bay area 18 Site of Indian Village on Saluria Bayou 21 La Salle’s settlement site 25 Page from the court record 79 Research vessel Anomaly 101 La Belle remnant as it emerged from the grave 103 Screening artifacts at the French settlement site 105 Cannons brought from France on l’Aimable 107

PREFACE

hen the cargo ship Aimable ran aground while trying to negotiate Pass Cavallo into Matagorda Bay in 1685, the noted explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle quickly accused her captain of purposely wrecking the vessel, possibly with malice. History’s judgment, not always accurate or just, has generally sided with La Salle, while condemning Captain Claude Aigron. Francis Parkman, for example, had this to say in La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West: Not only La Salle but [Henri] Joutel and others of his [La Salle’s] party believed that the wreck . . . was intentional. Aigron . . . had disobeyed orders and disregarded signals. Though he had been directed to tow the vessel through the channel, he went in under sail; and though little else was saved from the wreck, his personal property, including even some preserved fruits, was all landed safely. He had long been on ill terms with La Salle. . . . Aigron returned to France in the Joly, and was thrown into prison.

Nothing is said here about Captain Aigron’s early release from prison; in fact, hardly anyone has sided with Aigron. His own story has gone untold—until now. In the following pages I offer the translated court transcript, not of Aigron’s trial by Louis XIV’s royal tribunal on the grave charges made by La Salle, but of a civil suit brought against the captain in the Admiralty Court of La Rochelle. These proceedings

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brought forth the captain’s own version of the wreck, which apparently convinced the king that no further action was warranted. Plaintiffs in the civil action were two officers, late of the Aimable crew, seeking redress for their loss of wages and personal effects that had perished with the ship. The outcome of the trial was influenced not so much by the fairness of their pleadings—or by Aigron’s eloquent defense—as by specific articles of the French Sea Law promulgated in 1681. In the captain’s depositions given in response to the plaintiffs’ accusations, however, his story is brought to light for the first time. True, Aigron was “thrown into prison,” incarcerated for a time in Saint-Nicolas Tower of La Rochelle on the king’s order. But the record, as it can now be pieced together from extant documents, leaves many questions unanswered. Although the outcome of the civil suit seems fairly clear, the ultimate fate of Captain Aigron is elusive. We are left to draw our own conclusions as to whether the captain was guilty or innocent of La Salle’s accusations and to what degree others deserved a share of the guilt. Readers may find room to disagree with the conclusion offered. In the consideration of the proceedings, I entertained some doubt as to whether they constituted a trial or merely a preliminary hearing. One phrase in Captain Aigron’s final summation, “in case of trial,” seemed to affirm the latter. Consultation with others more familiar with court procedure than I ultimately led to the conclusion that the record reflects the initial phase of a trial. It seems apparent, however, that the matter was terminated by a court order before it advanced to the next step. We are left in doubt as to the nature of that order: whether it called for a settlement or an out-of-hand dismissal. Understanding the legal system of the French monarchy of more than three centuries ago has been a major challenge of this study throughout. Attempts to penetrate its obscurity finally led to the realization that it exhibits similarities to the system employed in civil courts of the United States today. One of these similarities is the use of a preliminary hearing to determine the substance of allegations before proceeding to a trial by jury. The legal proceedings that are the basis of this study are introduced with Aimable’s history, including events from the time she was leased

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to La Salle by the sieur Massiot until she ran aground and broke up on a sandy shoal at the mouth of an obscure Texas bay. Detailed here are the boarding of passengers and crew, the registering of cargo, and occurrences during the passage to America, including a row between the captain and the pilot that bore directly on the proceedings that followed. This account of the “store-ship” Aimable and her unfortunate end is but a sidelight to the far more dramatic, and tragic, story of La Salle’s failed colony, planted by mistake in the Texas coastal wilderness. Yet the elucidation of a neglected phase of this other, more vibrant historic episode provides a rare glimpse into ancient sea law and how it was applied through the French maritime ordonnances promulgated in August 1681. Preliminary to the trial documents are La Salle’s procès verbal, or “official report,” of the wrecking of Aimable, and his letter to the Marquis de Seignelay, Louis XIV’s secretary of state for the navy, in which the famed explorer offers his indictment of Aigron. I am indebted to Mark Patrick of the Detroit Public Library for permission to publish translations of these two documents from the library’s Burton Historical Collection. To these documents are added the pleadings of plaintiffs and defendants, translated by Professor François Lagarde of the Department of French and Italian, the University of Texas at Austin. Each item introduced into evidence has been given its own introduction and annotation by the author. These were written with the benefit of the 1681 Sea Law, graciously provided by Joseph McKnight, professor and legal historian at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law. I am indebted to Professor McKnight also for reading and commenting on the translated court documents, as to Gerald R. Powell, Abner V. McCall Professor of Evidence, Baylor University Law School, for providing legal commentaries pertinent to historic shipwrecks and their recovery and preservation. I extend my gratitude also to the many other persons who have facilitated the preparation of this volume. J. Barto Arnold III of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University, enabled me to share the experience of searching for the lost Aimable. Pauline

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Arseneault transcribed the court documents from the Archives Départementales de la Charente-Maritime in La Rochelle, France. James E. Bruseth of the Texas Historical Commission provided material from THC files and facilitated my visits to the La Salle settlement site during excavation. David Dodson of Pensacola, Florida, spent countless hours examining documents in French archives to assist me with many research questions. Thanks are due also to Donald E. Chipman for transportation to the La Salle settlement site for one final look before the archaeological project closed down and for providing photographs that are reproduced herein; and to John de Bry for pointing the way to acquisition of the documents that form the basis of this study and for the photograph of present-day La Rochelle, France. To these I add my wife, Peggy Weddle, who provided encouragement while enduring with patience my preoccupation with the task.

T H E W R E C K I N G OF LA SA L L E ' S S H I P A I M A B L E AND THE T R I A L O F C L AU DE A I G R O N


PART ONE

A I M A B L E ' S S T O RY


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VOYAGE OF DESTINY

n February 20, 1685, one of the most tragically ominous shipwrecks of the colonial era occurred on the Texas coast, bearing consequences that have extended to the present day. At the same time, this shipping disaster brought forth one of the most bitter controversies of an episode that was already awash in rancor. This was the wreck of l’Aimable, a merchant vessel serving the vaunted French explorer La Salle. She was not a happy ship. Her crew was not a happy crew. Even before the disaster that put her aground on a sandy shoal at the mouth of an obscure Texas bay, aspersion and innuendo rent her ranks. And then, pounded apart by relentless breakers, she sank slowly into the surf, taking with her the weaponry and provisions on which a nascent French colony depended for its existence. There she still lies, buried beneath tons of silt that have thwarted her discovery for more than three centuries. An armed cargo vessel, 180 tons burden, Aimable was leased by the famed explorer (birth name Robert Cavelier, but more widely known as sieur de La Salle) to assist his founding of a colony above the mouth of the Mississippi River. But plans went awry. Confused maps and limited geographical understanding caused a landing hundreds of miles farther west, at an unpromising site offering only suffering and death.

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Aimable’s troubles are most often laid at the feet of her captain, Claude Aigron; he has been accused of pilfering ship’s stores intended to feed his crew and of stealing goods salvaged from the dying ship and selling them for personal gain. La Salle himself, in a letter to Louis XIV’s minister, accused the captain of purposely running the ship aground. Such charges became the substance of a civil action filed against Aigron by his pilot and gunner after they and the rest of Aimable’s crew—fortunate souls that they were—returned to France aboard the warship Joly. Such allegations were also the reason for the captain’s imprisonment on orders from his king. La Salle’s charge notwithstanding, questions now arise, concerning not only the justice of the leader’s accusation but also that of the civil action. Was it based in a vendetta born of a dispute of doubtful nature between Captain Aigron and his pilot, who was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit? The legal record, on its face, offers only a hint. Perhaps some legal scholar can find an answer in the prolix verbiage of the court documents translated herein. Aimable’s story begins in 1671, when she was built in England and given the name Virginia, suggesting that she was destined for trade with the British colonies in North America. Neither the date she was acquired by her French owner nor the circumstances of the transfer are known. She became the property of Jean Massiot the younger, a prominent French shipowner and merchant of La Rochelle, an Atlantic port town adjacent to the Île de Ré. At least by 1681, Massiot employed Aigron, also of La Rochelle, as Aimable’s captain. In keeping with Massiot’s accustomed trade with both Africa and America, Captain Aigron presumably sailed the ship to those places. He is known to have voyaged in 1681 to French Guiana, off the north coast of South America, and presumably called at the French Caribbean islands as well.1 Little is known of Claude Aigron himself; there appears nothing to tie him to the numerous, and prominent, Aigron family of lesser nobility that spread out from Montignac (Charente), where it held the Fief of Combizan. The Aigron family blason, consisting of three silver pigeons with wings spread on a green or aqua field, may be seen today in a stained-glass window of the Church of Saint-Pierre de Mérignac. The name is said to originate from the word aigreta, a provincial form of

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The port of La Rochelle has changed little in general appearance since La Salle’s day, but today it is used largely by pleasure craft. Photo by John de Bry.

aigrette, a dialectal form of “heron.” The patriarch of this line appears to have been Abraham Aigron, sieur de La Motte et de Combizan, a town councilor of Angoulême from 1626 until his death in 1642. Thence, members of the Aigron family migrated down the Rivière Charente to arrive at La Rochelle by 1629. The first was Abraham’s second son, Jacques, a leader in the siege of that village in 1629. While the older brother, François, was heir to the title of sieur de Combizan, Jacques was entitled as sieur de La Motte. He became a councilor of the présidial of La Rochelle under the name Motte-Aigron. Pierre Aigron, born at La Rochelle in 1630, migrated to Canada in 1660. The surname Aigron also occurs in records of a seagoing family from Rochefort, but nothing has been found either there or in La Rochelle to link it to our Captain Claude Aigron. The only occurrence of the given name to surface so far is of one born in La Rochelle in 1668; he would have been seventeen years old in 1684, not thirty-five as was the captain.2 If Captain Aigron was from a noble line, there so far appears no indication of it. He was, in fact, a Protestant, as he admitted in a sworn


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statement before the king’s prosecutor, a matter that might have invited prosecution in Louis XIV’s France. His religious preference explains depositions presented on his behalf during the trial. These statements, evidently intended to emphasize the captain’s religious tolerance, made a point of the fact that he carried priests on his ship during the voyage to America and had them celebrate mass each day.3 Aimable and her captain advanced toward a lasting place in French maritime annals when Massiot leased the ship to La Salle for his voyage to the Gulf of Mexico. Thenceforth, the ship’s history is told in the contrasting journals of Henri Joutel and Jean-Baptiste Minet (La Salle’s chief lieutenant and engineer, respectively), and in La Salle’s official report of the shipwreck and letter to the minister Marquis de Seignelay. All of these allege the intentional wrecking of the vessel. Add to these accounts proceedings of the lawsuit brought by the ship’s pilot, Zacharie Mengaud, and gunner, Pierre Georget.4 La Salle, with the two royal vessels provided him for the voyage already overburdened, had acted out of desperation to lease Aimable after the king refused to provide a third ship. Having crowded supplies onto the warship Joly until her captain complained that her battle-readiness was being jeopardized, he was able to effect the lease from Massiot at his own expense. Thus, the ship passed into La Salle’s hands on June 5, 1684, when there appeared in person before the royal notaries at La Rochelle the honorable Jean Massiot le jeune, merchant of this city, sole owner of the good and suitably watertight ship named l’Aimable of one hundred eighty tonneaux burthen . . . captain [Claude] Aigron; provisioned, fully rigged, and seaworthy, with enough food, bread, wine, lard, and other needs for the nourishment of the captain and the 22-man crew for the entire voyage . . . , armed with ten cannons and small arms.5

Massiot, it was further stated, was leasing his ship voluntarily to “Monsieur Cavelier de La Salle, governor for His Majesty of the territory of Louisiana.” La Salle was to load the ship with “merchandise” for the voyage to America and return it to the island of Martinique to


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The signatures of La Salle and Jean Massiot le jeune as they appear on their agreement for the leasing of Aimable for the voyage to America.

be discharged. If La Salle should need the ship to send to France goods obtained in the Indian trade, the ship might return instead to La Rochelle. (Such stipulations, as it turned out, were merely academic.) Massiot was guaranteed a monthly lease payment of 1,550 livres from the time the ship set sail from her home port. La Salle paid the first two months’ installments, due in advance, on the date of the contract. In the event of damage or breakdown, and, presumably, if the ship were to be lost during the voyage, the two parties to the agreement would share the loss.6 Aimable’s crew list of twenty-two men, signed on for “the voyage to Canada,”7 was drawn on July 2. The list was headed by the thirtyfive-year-old Captain Aigron. Jacques Zacharie Mengaud [Mingaud, or Maingaud] from Oléron,8 the captain’s senior by fifteen years, was the pilot. Also among the officers was the cannoneer, or gunner, Pierre Georget of Saint-Gilles, who, upon return to France aboard Joly would join Mengaud in the civil suit against Captain Aigron and Massiot. The other officers and petty officers, with one exception, were from


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La Rochelle: boatswain Pierre Augustin, carpenters Dubois and Jean Segefardois, cooper Pierre Moreau, and coxswain (maître de chaloupe) Bastien La Pierre. Moïse Paugron from Tremblade is listed as chief steward (maître valet). Three of the six seamen also were from La Rochelle: André Prévost, Jacques Bigras, and Louis Crugeón. Others were Pierre Martin of Bordeaux, Isaac Simon of La Tremblade, and Jean Baudry of Meschers-sur-Gironde; ship’s boys (garçons) were Jean Mançeau, age fifteen, of Marennes, and Jacques Boutin of Oléron and Elie d’Alon of La Rochelle, both age twelve.9 The day after the crew list was drawn, July 3, Massiot signed Aimable’s cargo register. La Salle had placed on board eight cannons and their cannonballs; eight thousand pounds of powder; thirty casks of wine; one hundred fifty quintals of bread; fifty barrels of beef and lard; various kinds of cloth and clothing; axes and other tools; and four hundred rifled muskets.10 With Aimable and the two royal vessels fully burdened, La Salle made arrangements for a fifty-ton ketch, Saint François, to carry goods as far as Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti).11 Aimable boarded, besides the arms and provisions and her twentytwo-man crew, a considerable number of passengers. There were close to forty hired men, a number of volunteers, and six women or girls who came with expectations of finding husbands in the colony. There was also the family of Lucien Talon, who had come from Canada to enlist as a soldier after hearing glowing reports of the country from one who had journeyed down the Mississippi River with La Salle. Besides the father, there were Madam Talon (Isabelle Planteau); two young daughters, Marie-Elisabeth, who was fated to die in the colony, and Marie-Madeleine, who was to share the Mexican adventure of her brothers after rescue by the Spaniards; and three sons of tender age, Pierre, Jean-Baptiste, and Lucien fils. Madam Talon carried in her womb a sixth child to be born during the voyage. Two other young lads were also to have adventurous lives among the Spaniards following the tragic demise of the colony: Eustache Bréman, who may have been accompanied by his parents and orphaned in the colony, and Pierre Meunier, destined to be a settler in Spanish New Mexico.12


The names of thirty-seven tradesmen who signed on for La Salle’s enterprise between June 7 and July 16, 1684, are preserved in the archives at La Rochelle. With the exception of the surgeon-major, Étienne Liotot, all of them sailed on Aimable. Recruited for La Salle by Jean Massiot, each tradesman entered into a contract, signed by the explorer himself, giving his age, place of origin, trade, and term of contract, either two years or three. Among them were carpenter, cooper, flour miller, baker, mason, toolmaker, blacksmith, shoemaker, gardener, furrier, and ship’s pilot. There were eleven sailors, none of whom was assigned to any ship, a German gunner, and an Italian glovemaker. Although most of the men were in their thirties, ages ranged from eighteen to sixty-five. As diverse in origin as in age and occupation, they came from many parts of France, from Dieppe, Upper Normandy, in the northwest to Provence in the southeast. Eventually condemned indiscriminately by La Salle for their uselessness, none of the tradesmen survived the expedition.13 The volunteers about to embark on the voyage are little known, but several are said to have previously sailed on Aimable. By and large, they were men of means with a yen for adventure. A number of them came from La Salle’s hometown of Rouen, in Normandy. There were also as many as eight merchants, each with quantities of goods to be sold in Saint-Domingue or traded among the Indians. Most of them are believed to have returned to France directly from the island colony, but two who are said to have sailed on Captain Aigron’s ship remained, to involve themselves tragically in the affairs of La Salle’s colony. These were the Duhaut brothers, Pierre and Dominique, the former destined to be La Salle’s murderer.14 Of the three Récollet Franciscan friars on the voyage, one—not mentioned by name—embarked on Aimable. Passengers were boarded and sails set; the four ships—Joly, Belle, Aimable, and Saint-François— moved out of the Chef-de-bois roadstead to the open sea. The voyage was not a happy one. Aboard Joly, disputes raged between La Salle and the captain, Taneguy Le Gallois de Beaujeu, a prideful career naval officer. Dissension of uncertain cause arose also on Aimable. Joutel was sent in mid-September to investigate complaints that “some were making of others.” This may have had to do

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with a dispute that came to a head several days later between the pilot Mengaud and Captain Aigron. On September 23, Mengaud was “dismissed and deprived of the conduct of the ship and . . . suspended by Aigron from all command.” At issue, the pilot later claimed, was the course the ship was to follow. The dispute surely figured in the accusations Mengaud and Georget later made against Captain Aigron.15 Sometime during this unpleasant interval, Madam Talon gave birth on Aimable to her sixth child, a fourth son, who was given La Salle’s name, Robert. The leader himself stood as godfather.16 Before reaching Saint-Domingue, the four ships were separated by storm. Three of them made port at Petit-Goâve from September 27 to October 2. Then came news that Saint-François had fallen prey to Spanish privateers near Port-de-Paix, on the north side of the island. The Spaniards of Santo Domingo, like the French of Saint-Domingue, had not yet been informed of the peace made between the two crowns some six weeks previously. The two months spent at Petit-Goâve were marked by rampant illness, the defection of some thirty men, and the addition of a few troublemakers who were to involve themselves in the building tragedy. It was here that Aimable’s captain allegedly committed one of the offenses of which he was accused later: selling provisions from his ship’s stores that were meant to feed his crew and putting his men on short rations in consequence. Before the little fleet sailed again on November 25, La Salle himself decided to proceed aboard Aimable rather than Joly. With him went his surgeon, Étienne Liotot; his brother, the abbot Jean Cavelier; two of the Récollet friars, Anastase Douay and Zénobe Membré; several volunteers; and Joutel.17 Thenceforth, Aimable was to take the lead, the other two ships staying within view by day and following her lantern by night. The plan proved to be ill-advised. The heavily laden cargo vessel was not designed for speed. Joly, even while navigating with only her two topsails and tacking most of the time, constantly had to heave to and wait for her.18 Aimable reached the specified rendezvous at Cuba’s Isle of Pines twelve hours after the warship and nine hours after Belle.


Waiting at Cape San Antonio for a favorable wind for entering the Gulf of Mexico, the ships were beset by a sudden squall in the middle of the night on December 17. Dragged anchors sent Belle and Aimable crashing together in a mass of tangled rigging. Belle struck Aimable’s bowsprit, breaking the storeship’s main yard and her own mizzenmast and topsail yard; Belle also lost an anchor and a hundred fathoms of anchor cable.19 The mishap notwithstanding, the ships made sail by ten o’clock next morning. The little fleet ventured forth into the traditional “Spanish Sea,” which was jealously guarded by Spain against all foreign interlopers. Crossing the Gulf on a course approximating 330 degrees, the ships came within soundings on the Louisiana coast west of the Mississippi Delta on December 27.20 Thence, they groped their way westward along the shallow continental shelf, unable to see the shore from five-fathom water. At last, sailors at Aimable’s masthead espied land southwest of Grand Isle. As the ships sailed westward, they sought La Salle’s specified destination at “the far end of the Gulf’s bend.”21 The place had been chosen on the basis of hypothetical maps that placed the mouth of the Mississippi in the Texas Coastal Bend. Out of sight of land till January 1, a shore party was sent in longboats but was forced to leave the craft three hundred yards out and wade ashore. Next day, the ships became separated in fog; Aimable and Belle continued down the coast, leaving the warship behind. Not until January 19 did the three vessels come together again, gathering in an anchorage adjacent to Cedar Bayou on the middle Texas coast. With La Salle and Beaujeu blaming each other for the misunderstanding, confusion reigned. La Salle, unable to determine longitude and having fixed the location of his river by confused geography, recognized no familiar landmarks. While the leader groped for understanding, the ships took a pounding from the howling wind and heavy swells, and the people suffered. During this time the engineer Minet made a curious observation that he was to recall later: “One is unable to make more over the captain and the pilot of the flûte [Aigron and Mengaud] than M.

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Map of Matagorda Bay, showing the locations of key points related to La Salle’s enterprise, including the two shipwrecks that signaled defeat for his colony. The wreck of Aimable, which deprived the colony of vital supplies and equipment, began the tragic course of events from which there was no recovery. Map reproduced from Robert S. Weddle, The Wreck of the Belle, the Ruin of La Salle.

de La Salle does. He has them eat with him and gives them wine. So they are always in a good mood.”22 Was this camaraderie a factor in the approaching disaster? Did La Salle encourage it with the hope of resolving the differences between the two? If so, he surely had cause to regret it later. After eight days in the anchorage, La Salle was able to put men ashore to explore up the coast. The ships remained at anchor another twelve days, hard-pressed to hold their ground and in constant jeopardy of an onshore wind or a howling norther. Aimable snapped a cable, losing an anchor. Her other anchors held, but her stem was somehow broken. She afterward had a noticeable list, the result of shifting cargo or water leaking into her hold through the crack in her bow—perhaps a factor in her ultimate fate. Belle, having already lost one anchor at


Cape San Antonio, lost another, thus hastening her own disaster, the result of inadequate ground tackle and inept seamanship. During these tempestuous three weeks, passengers and crew aboard the three ships endured the continuous pounding while laboring to confront each emergency as it arose. At last word came from the shore party of a bay some distance up the coast that seemed to offer an adequate harbor. On the evening of February 14, 1685, Aimable, with La Salle still aboard, came to anchor before Pass Cavallo, the natural entrance to Matagorda Bay. There she joined the other ships, which had arrived the day before. La Salle, at least for the moment, believed he had arrived at one of the western passes of the Mississippi River. With Joly anchored well offshore in forty-foot water, he prepared to have Belle and Aimable enter the bay. Amazingly, the vessels had survived the hazards of three weeks of foul weather while anchored off the hazardous shore near Cedar Bayou. Now, in contemplation of negotiating the treacherous channel of Pass Cavallo, new dangers arose. As if the channel itself did not offer enough dangers, division in the ranks forbade reasonable consideration of the objective.

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MAKINGS OF DISASTER

f the channel soundings, Joutel and Minet rendered different accounts, each seemingly influenced by his personal loyalties, underlying the controversy between Beaujeu and La Salle. Beaujeu did all he could to urge caution; La Salle, true to his character, sought to force circumstances rather than face reality.1 By Joutel’s account, Belle’s pilot had found the bay entrance “very good,” a well-sheltered anchorage within; La Salle ordered new soundings to see whether the ships might enter that day.2 Minet, on the other hand, recounted that La Salle had sent the pilot to tell Captain Beaujeu that he had found the entrance channel with sixteen or eighteen feet of water, affording easy passage for the ships: “I went with M. de Beaujeu to sound and draw a plan of this channel; we found eight or nine feet on the bar. . . .”3 At Beaujeu’s urging, the pilots of all three ships sounded the pass next day and marked the channel with buoys and floating casks. Elie Richaud of Belle, François Guitton and Christophe Gabaret of Joly, and Zacharie Mengaud of Aimable reported, “We found there nine feet at low tide and at high tide ten feet.”4 La Salle argued with the report, claiming high tide occurred only in the evening. He alleged that the king’s notary had drawn it to suit himself. The approaching disaster had many ingredients, but the expedition commander’s attitude surely was one. In justification, it may be

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MA K I N G S OF DI SA S T E R

said that La Salle bore the burden of many concerns. Captain Beaujeu, anxious for the safety of his ship in the unsheltered anchorage, was eager to put to sea. He still had in Joly’s hold four cannons brought for the protection of the fort La Salle intended to build, and he dared not try to remove them in the open sea for fear of upsetting the ship’s trim. There was also the matter of Minet. The brash young engineer had been so free with his advice that La Salle had told him he was not needed and could leave. When the leader changed his mind and ordered Minet ashore, the young man refused to go. Many of the people still huddled in crowded quarters aboard ship had not been ashore since leaving Petit-Goâve almost three months previously. La Salle outwardly maintained that he was where he needed to be to carry out his enterprise; yet he surely felt a growing uncertainty, for neither he nor anyone else in the expedition knew where they really were. Above all, there was the urgency of getting Belle and Aimable into the bay. On Sunday, February 18, Belle crossed the bar and sailed up the channel to anchor near the island shore opposite Pelican Shoal. Attention then turned to taking Aimable into the bay. The next day, longboats from Belle and Joly were employed in removing the heaviest part of Aimable’s cargo to make the passage safer. After several thousand pounds of lead and iron had been put ashore, by Joutel’s account, Captain Aigron declared that he could now take the ship in with ease; nothing else need be removed.5 On the twentieth, La Salle sent Belle’s pilot, Elie Richaud, to assist Aigron and the longboats from Joly and Belle in towing the cargo ship over the bar. That same morning, Minet went by canoe with Captain Beaujeu and his second pilot, Gabaret, to Aimable. They asked Captain Aigron how much water the ship drew since the removal of some of the heaviest cargo. Aigron replied, “Eight to eight and a half feet.” They then advised him not to try to enter, for the bar was scarcely deeper; the pitching of the ship in the heavy swells would surely put her aground or break a seam. Aigron replied that La Salle had told him to enter, and enter he would.6 Jean-Baptiste Minet, the twenty-two-year-old engineer so filled with youthful confidence that he dared give advice to the commander, pro-

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Minet’s Plan de l’entrée du lac: A, La Salle’s camp; B and C, the Indians’ huts; D, where the flûte (Aimable) was lost; E, where the frigate Belle was anchored. Courtesy of Archives Nationales, Service Hydrographique, Paris, France.


vides what appears to be the most—perhaps the only—objective view of what followed. La Salle, not being a seaman, lacked the knowledge needed for making sound judgments in such matters, yet refused to listen to Captain Beaujeu’s advice, born of years of experience on the sea. Beaujeu’s every offer of assistance had been rejected, and La Salle had told him he was free to go. The captain had urged La Salle not to have Aimable attempt to enter the bay, but La Salle ignored the advice. Thus, at this crucial time, Beaujeu was awaiting only La Salle’s written release before sailing for France. It was fortunate in many ways that he was still available to lend a hand when disaster struck.7 On the morning of February 20, La Salle went with Joutel and some workmen to fell a tree for making a canoe. As a signal for Aigron to take his ship into the bay, the explorer was to build a fire on the beach when the tide came in. The woodcutters had just started to work when a band of Indians appeared. In this tense situation, the Frenchmen’s first contact with the Karankawans of the Matagorda Bay area, La Salle acted hastily. While he was entertaining one group of Indians with food and drink, others departed for their village, taking some of the workmen. La Salle was obliged to follow. The signal fire had been lighted, as agreed upon, when the tide was halfway in, so Aimable hoisted sail and started toward the pass. Glancing over his shoulder as he followed the Indians, La Salle observed that the ship was steering badly, angling toward the shoals to the right of the channel. Then there was a cannon shot, the dreaded distress signal. Aimable began furling her sails.8 Typically, La Salle had placed himself in an impossible situation. There was nothing he could do. Minet, watching Aimable’s progress from Joly, saw the cargo ship get underway, and then, after following the markers and buoys for a while, run aground on the bar. Joly’s longboat, standing by to assist the entry if needed, was already near the scene. The warship’s best sailors were sent in the canoe; “they did what they could to save her. But she was too solidly aground . . . the wine that M. de La Salle left for the captain and the pilots had rendered them more daring than necessary, so that night the flûte stuck fast in the sand.” Joly’s longboat and the canoe, with boats from Aimable and Belle, worked throughout the day and night to remove the cargo from the doomed ship. In the process,

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some sailors from the warship became convinced that the cargo vessel had been purposely wrecked, but not all, as will be seen in the following court record.9 Whereas Minet attributed error to both La Salle and Aigron, Joutel lays the blame squarely on the captain. The channel had been well marked, and ample advice given, he allows. As the ship entered the danger zone, even the shouted warnings of the sailor at the masthead to steer to windward were countermanded by the captain; the ship veered to leeward and promptly gouged bottom. Had an anchor been dropped immediately, Joutel avers, “he could have gotten off the reef.” Instead, he took in his mainsail and set the spritsail, driving the ship farther onto the reef. Joly’s ensign, Du Hamel, carried an anchor forward of the grounded vessel to kedge her off, but Aimable’s anchor, finally dropped, held fast, negating the effort until the opportunity passed. With the mast still erect and bobbing in the wind, Aigron made no move to have it cut down. Father Zénobe Membré, who had been on the ship since Saint-Domingue, seized an ax and felled the mast. The passengers, including the women and children, were put ashore. Twice during the salvage operation, Aimable’s longboat went adrift. The first time, it escaped its mooring at the stern of the ship with a sailor sleeping on board—”from wine or fatigue”—and was cast upon Matagorda Island. The sailor walked to the camp to report where the boat was; it was recovered, but valuable time had been lost. Two days later, says Joutel, the boat was lost again; this time, its mooring had been cut.10 La Salle, in his official report, recalled having sent the pilot who had taken Belle safely over the bar to assist Aigron in making the entry. Aigron refused assistance and sent the pilot away. He further ignored La Salle’s order to be towed in by longboats sent from Belle and Joly, refusing their help in favor of proceeding under sail. When Aimable first scraped bottom, the disenfranchised pilot Mengaud advised putting out an anchor; Aigron refused, even though the ship was already outside the marked channel. The official report eclipses much, claiming for La Salle a role in the rescue attempt that he could scarcely have made from his position on shore. La Salle further excused himself for lack of oversight, saying he had wished to be on board but was


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In the mid-eighteenth century the town of Saluria rose up on the site occupied in La Salle’s time by a Karankawan Indian village, the inhabitants of which pilfered stores washed up from the wrecked Aimable and attacked the Frenchmen who had taken their canoes. This episode began a lasting enmity between the French settlers and the native inhabitants of the Matagorda Bay area. Saluria, begun before 1850, thrived as a seaport and customs station until it was burned and abandoned during the Civil War. The town was gradually reoccupied at war’s end, only to be swept away by the 1875 hurricane. Photo by Robert S. Weddle.

prevented by the untimely arrival of the Indians. Yet it was he who had given the signal for the ship to get underway.11 Such was his pattern, evident in multiple ship losses. In each case he had left the vessel in the charge of a captain he afterward claimed not to trust. In each instance he felt the urge to be somewhere else at the time.12 La Salle seems to have had an attack of hindsight as he wrote to the naval minister, Marquis de Seignelay: “The suspicions I had at SaintDomingue of this captain’s evil intent . . . caused me to embark on that ship.” And at Matagorda Bay he claimed, “As I thought I had reason to distrust him, I ordered him to have his ship go in under tow.”13 Such claims speak ill of his judgment in ordering the ship to enter the


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bay with hardly more than an inch of water under her keel when he himself could not be present. Not until the twenty-first did La Salle go on board Aimable, blaming the lack of a boat for the delay. By then, Minet says, “the flûte kept sinking and contorting herself.” On the twenty-second, sailors from Joly labored to save more of Aimable’s cargo. That night, the south-southeast wind stiffened, sending billows rolling in that made it impossible for the boats to cross the mile and a half of open water between the ship and the camp on shore. Foul weather persisted the next two days. By the time fair weather returned on the twenty-eighth, the salvage effort had become futile, as water stood waist-deep between decks. Aimable was sinking deeper day by day. By March 7, she had disappeared entirely.14 Much had been saved from the doomed ship: the powder, eight cannons, the food—including the flour, the corn, some meat, and “a good portion” of the wine and brandy,” says Minet. On the other hand, La Salle lists as lost a staggering portion of the cargo: more than sixty casks of wine and brandy, all the bacon and beef but nine barrels, and a quantity of beans and flour. Besides the provisions, stores of munitions on which the enterprise depended for its success were lost with the ship. Still in the sunken vessel were four twelve-pounder cannons, 1,620 cannonballs, four hundred grenades, four thousand pounds of iron and five to six thousand pounds of lead, most of the fittings for the forge, the mill cordage, and chests of arms and tools. Almost all the clothing of soldiers and passengers was lost, and most of the medicines, as well as axes, tobacco, knives, and goods intended for barter with the Indians for food.15 Much of the cargo brought ashore was spoiled by sea water. After the neighboring Karankawans returned to the French camp to avail themselves of bundles of blankets piled up on shore, La Salle declared intentions of recovering the blankets or confiscating the Indian canoes in recompense. Execution of his plan quickly precipitated a new tragedy and hastened the disaster that ultimately spelled the doom of the struggling colony.

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THE PARTING

aptain Beaujeu, who would take Aimable’s crew aboard his vessel for the return voyage to France, awaited only fair weather for sailing. Provisions were short, but Joly’s crew would go on reduced rations to accommodate the passengers. La Salle was now blaming Beaujeu for the loss of the cargo ship. At the same time, he abused Captain Aigron with threats, forcing him to fast and accusing him of taking pay from La Salle’s enemies to wreck the ship.1 Beaujeu, convinced that La Salle was nowhere near the Mississippi, recognized the seriousness of the colony’s plight far better than the explorer himself. He made several offers to send or bring aid, all of which La Salle refused. A few days after a rash attempt to seize the Karankawas’ canoes had resulted in the deaths of two young men, Joly unfurled her sails and set an eastward course, leaving the dejected colonists—already dying at a rapid rate—to a dreadful fate. With Aimable’s crew went several disenchanted colonists, among them the abbot d’Esmanville, as well as Minet. Captain Beaujeu carried La Salle’s letters and official report, which boded ill for both Minet and Aigron, or so said Minet himself, yet no La Salle letter has surfaced that accuses him. It seems likely that Minet’s difficulty came as a natural consequence of his disobedience of the royal orders to remain with La Salle.2

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After Joly’s departure, La Salle left Joutel in charge at “Grand Camp” on Matagorda Island and went to explore the bay area. In the leader’s absence, Joutel gathered in Aimable’s planking as it floated in from the wreck and used it to fashion a redoubt among the dunes. When La Salle returned, he ordered his colonists moved from Grand Camp to a bluff overlooking Garcitas Creek, some five miles from its mouth in Lavaca Bay. The redoubt of ship timbers was dismantled, the boards buried in the sand to be retrieved later. On Garcitas Creek La Salle began building a temporary settlement to serve until he could move the colony to the main stem of the Mississippi River. The tragic events that befell this assortment of shoddy barracks—which historians have mistakenly labeled Fort-Saint-Louis—spelled the death of such a plan. With the temporary settlement well underway, La Salle sent Joutel back to the mouth of the bay to retrieve Aimable’s buried planking for use in the principal building at the new site. Joutel digresses from his account of this operation to tell of new soundings, made by himself and Belle’s second pilot, of the pass where Aimable was lost. This new effort, he declares, agreed with soundings taken “the first time,” revealing a depth of nine to twelve feet, with five and six fathoms within. The purpose of this undertaking apparently was to forestall any future claim against La Salle for the loss of Aimable. “The wickedness of the captain [Aigron] . . . in having purposely run aground was evident, for nothing was easier than entering this bay.” The depths he reported contrast sharply with those of Beaujeu and Minet that caused Beaujeu to warn Aigron against trying to enter the bay.3 Joly’s voyage to France need not be a part of Aimable’s story. It included a set-to with a Spanish galley that killed two of Captain Beaujeu’s crew and held others for ransom, then a meeting with a friendly English merchantman whose captain encouraged Beaujeu to go by way of Jamestown rather than Saint-Domingue. On May 3, Joly entered Chesapeake Bay, where it is said no French vessel had ever been before. Anchored inside, Captain Beaujeu sent the ship’s lieutenant, Chevalier d’Aire, with Abbé d’Esmanville and Minet on the two-day journey to Jamestown for permission to reprovision the ship.

T H E PA R T I N G

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On the site of La Salle’s Garcitas Creek settlement, archaeologist James E. Bruseth (left) discusses with the author the excavation conducted by the Texas Historical Commission from 1996 until early 2002. In 1722 the first Presidio de la Bahía was built here, overlapping the earlier French site. Photo by Donald E. Chipman.

Neither Beaujeu, in his report to Seignelay, nor Minet makes mention of Captain Aigron’s having made the journey, but the suit brought against him later indicates that he did: Aigron was to be accused of selling in Jamestown cloth he had salvaged from the wreck of his ship and appropriating the proceeds to his own benefit. Early in July, the day given variously as the third, the fifth, or the eighth, Joly entered the Rivière Charente. One day later, by Minet’s account, the ship arrived at Rochefort. The passengers and Aimable’s crew quickly scattered—excepting Zacharie Mengaud and Pierre Georget, who felt they had a score to settle. Beaujeu wrote a letter to the Marquis de Seignelay4 and sent it with La Salle’s letter and the procès verbal on the loss of Aimable. Whereas the captain’s letter details events of his homeward voyage, La Salle’s report—signed by himself and ten witnesses—relates happenings before, during, and after the ship loss. The king and his minister, with only La Salle’s account to go on, must have had difficulty giving Aigron any benefit of the doubt when


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they read the report of his conduct—however biased it might have been. They surely noted also the precautions that had been taken to assure a safe passage: “Buoys were placed in the sea by the pilot of l’Aimable [Mengaud], and two [markers] on shore, one to line up with the other, as all the pilots agreed.” Thus, a range had been established; this device is still used to enable pilots to stay within a channel when entering a harbor simply by lining up two markers on shore, placed some distance apart. Had Captain Aigron adhered to the range, as Belle had done—or so it appeared—the ship might not have been lost; his failure to do so, one might conclude, strongly intimated that the captain had wrecked his vessel either by design or gross neglect. Such evidence was surely strengthened by La Salle’s report that Aigron had both refused the aid of Belle’s pilot, who had taken the smaller ship over the bar safely, and ignored as well the order to proceed under tow from a depth of two and a half fathoms. This contrary behavior, it seemed, had impeded efforts to kedge the grounded ship off the bar. The report that Aigron’s personal possessions had been removed beforehand also suggested that he had planned to wreck his vessel. The “many circumstances that cause me to attribute this wreck to malice,” as La Salle wrote, brought the king’s order, dated July 22, 1685, for Aigron’s imprisonment. At the same time, another order arrived, calling for Minet’s arrest for deserting La Salle in disobedience of the king’s order. When the arrest orders reached La Rochelle, they found Aigron already mired in difficulty resulting from the wreck of his vessel: the lawsuit lodged against him by two of his officers. Mengaud and Georget lost no time in seeking legal recourse for wages lost because of the shipwreck. On July 9, the day after the date they give for Joly’s return to La Rochelle, they retained Michel Rochard as their attorney and filed their civil action in the Admiralty Court. They sought pay for time served on Aimable and compensation for clothing lost in the wreck. Both Captain Aigron and Jean Massiot, the ship’s owner, were named as defendants. With Rochard retained as plaintiffs’ counsel and Denis Barraud as attorney for Aigron, Massiot retained Didier Poirel. Moïse Louis Delisle, judge of the Admiralty Court at La Rochelle, presided over the case.5

T H E PA R T I N G

The plaintiffs’ original petition was followed nine days later, on July 18, by Aigron’s first deposition. With Barraud as his attorney, he deposed in person before the Admiralty judge and the king’s prosecutor, offering supporting statements by two members of his crew and a sailor from Joly. Three days later, court officials scheduled a hearing of the case for August 11. In the meantime, Aigron, through attorney Barraud, filed two depositions, on July 27 and 30, rebutting the plaintiffs’ petition. On August 4 the plaintiffs responded with a written brief maintaining the validity of their claim and making a new allegation. On August 7, their attorney, Rochard, issued a summons for the defendants to appear before the Admiralty Court. Although no date appears on the document, it is presumed the summons was for the August 11 hearing. Aigron, in a last-ditch effort two days before the hearing, offered through his attorney a brief seeking dismissal of the suit. The proceedings may seem strange to anyone familiar with court trials in the present-day United States, yet apparently they were in accord with the normal procedure in French civil cases of the period. The August 11 hearing consisted only of an oral presentation of the plaintiffs’ case. The defendants then were ordered by the Admiralty judge to present their argument in writing. Although the defendants presented several ancillary documents and supporting written statements, there was no interrogation of witnesses, hence no cross-examination. From the available record, the court issued an order. The most logical assumption seems to be that the order either declared a settlement or dismissed the case. The proceedings as a whole reflect well on the competence of the opposing attorneys. Rochard supported the plaintiffs’ claim with citations to maritime law: L’ordonnance de la Marine, promulgated August 3, 1681, as well as precedents established by the Hanseatic League in 1591 and the Rhodian Sea-Law, from perhaps as early as the seventh century. Defense counsel, Barraud especially, took up the challenge, contesting the interpretation Rochard placed on the sea law, on which he based much of his argument. Had the plaintiffs had the opportunity to present witnesses, there would have been several persons remaining in the bay area who might

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have supported the plaintiffs’ case by testifying to the circumstances of the shipwreck. One was Minet, who stayed in the residence of Pierre Arnoul, the port intendant, until the order came on July 28 for his and Aigron’s imprisonment in Saint-Nicolas Tower of La Rochelle.6 Also, Captain Beaujeu and his officers and crew remained in the La Rochelle-Rochefort area for a time. The outcome of the suit, however, seems to have hinged on whether the plaintiffs were legally entitled to salary or recompense for lost possessions. Indeed, the legal proceedings seem to have focused more on the justice of the plaintiffs’ claims than on the circumstances of the ship loss. Attorneys representing both sides showed themselves to be well versed in the maritime ordinance. As seems proper for a civil proceeding, the final judgment was based more on points of law than on allegations against Captain Aigron. To substantiate his own defense, Aigron presented two “supernumerary” members of Aimable’s complement who heard his deposition read and attested to its accuracy. He also offered a statement taken from an officer on Joly the previous March 19, during the return voyage. Additionally, the captain made good use of the orders he had received from both Jean Massiot and La Salle, introducing copies of the documents into the court record. Crucial to the proceedings was the difficulty that had arisen during the voyage to America between the plaintiff Mengaud and Captain Aigron, whereby Mengaud ceased to function as Aimable’s pilot. Whereas Mengaud maintained that he was not obliged to function as pilot at any time thereafter, Aigron claimed La Salle had instructed him to have Mengaud steer when the ship attempted to enter the bay. The captain initially claimed that Mengaud actually was steering the ship. Yet when confronted with evidence that Louis Crugeón was at the helm, the captain refused to exonerate Mengaud, asserting that he was still the pilot; it was the pilot’s duty to see that the ship was steered safely, and Mengaud was culpable for assigning the duty to a common sailor. Ultimately, the rift between the pilot and the captain seems to have worked more to Aigron’s benefit than otherwise, for it suggested that the suit was based more in Mengaud’s pique than on just legal claims.

T H E PA R T I N G

Where was the other plaintiff, Pierre Georget, in all this? There is reason to wonder, for he appears to have remained in the background throughout the proceedings. Instruments filed by Aigron and Massiot focus almost entirely on Mengaud, with only passing mention of Georget. The inference that Georget’s entry into the lawsuit stemmed more from Mengaud’s persuasiveness or from friendship than from actual conviction seems inescapable. When the suit failed, it was Mengaud alone who brought new charges against Aigron.

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THE LOST CAUSE

a Salle’s colonists, sea-weary and homesick, watched Joly’s departing sails with sinking hearts. Yet confused and lost as they were, their trials were just beginning. Slowly and irrevocably, the colony moved toward its tragic end. La Salle explored northward up the bay to find a safe spot for a temporary post, that he might seek the main course of the Mississippi aboard the small frigate Belle. The little colony—never given the name Fort-Saint-Louis, yet destined to be forever called that through error now three centuries old— rose upon the banks of Garcitas Creek, a ragged settlement of miserable huts scarcely fit for human habitation. The redoubt at Grand Camp, fashioned from Aimable’s planking, had been dismantled and transported by Belle to a supply depot at the mouth of Lavaca Bay, thence by canoe to the settlement. There it served one last purpose in the building of the headquarters house, the only one of the half-dozen structures not made entirely of native materials. This remnant of Aimable’s hull stood on the bluff overlooking Garcitas Creek until April 1690, when it was burned by Spaniards. When the makeshift post reached a reasonable state of completion, the leader sent Belle to retrieve stores saved from Aimable that still lay buried in the sand of Matagorda Island. The recovered goods included eight iron cannons that fired balls of three to six pounds. Taken by Belle to the supply depot, they were carried up Lavaca Bay by dugout

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T H E L O S T CAU S E

canoe to the mouth of Garcitas Creek and thence upstream five miles to the settlement. There the guns were arranged around the settlement in defensive order, even though they were useless for defense; all the cannon balls of the right caliber either lay among the ballast stones of the sunken Aimable or had been hauled away in Joly’s hold. When the Spanish general Alonso de León found the ruined settlement in April 1689, he buried the cannons in a well-drained clay bank. Unearthed and reburied in the same place in November 1690, they lay in anaerobic soil for three hundred years before they were seen again. This remnant of Aimable’s cargo then served to establish unequivocally the long-debated site of the first European settlement in what was to become the Spanish Province of Texas. The cannons, however, were obviously not the eight twelvepounders La Salle had placed aboard Aimable in La Rochelle. Those remained, by La Salle’s claim, in the sunken ship. If so, they still lie there beneath the water and silt of Pass Cavallo where the ship went down in 1685, despite Captain Aigron’s contrary assertion. Aigron deposed that all the cannons had been taken off his ship before she ran aground, except four so small he could not understand why La Salle was concerned about them.1 Recovery of the supplies left at Grand Camp complete, La Salle loaded Belle with the most essential goods available, evidence of his plan for taking the small frigate to find the Mississippi’s main channel and establishing there his permanent colony. Before he could launch this undertaking, signs of a long-ago Spanish presence in the region sent him instead on a trek westward, still inflamed with a desire to conquer the mineral-rich region of New Spain, which the French called Nouvelle-Biscaye. During his absence, Belle, manned by an inept crew diminished by death and weakened by dehydration, wrecked on Matagorda Peninsula in a sudden squall. The colony was stranded. Having already suffered repeated disasters, its numbers were diminishing daily. In desperation, La Salle divided the remnant to lead a small group toward Canada in hope of bringing rescue. The attempt fell apart in a bloodletting in eastern Texas, with the leader himself slain by disgruntled followers. Five of his group eventually reached Canada and France, but for the twenty-odd remaining colonists, including women

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and children, still huddled in the miserable settlement on Garcitas Creek, no help ever came. Finally, in the winter of 1688–1689, the hostile Karankawas, feigning friendship, fell upon the unsuspecting colonists in a brutal massacre, sparing only a few children, who were taken into the tribe. Those so spared were Robert Talon, born at sea aboard Aimable between France and Saint-Domingue, now a toddler of three years, and three of his older siblings. Their father long dead, these children saw their mother slain by a Karankawa arrow. By the time they were taken from the Indians by León’s Spanish troop in 1690, the two younger ones could converse only in the Karankawan tongue. Claude Aigron, had he envisioned the suffering of those whom he had transported across the ocean, might have considered himself fortunate to suffer no worse than temporary confinement in SaintNicolas Tower. And Jean-Baptiste Minet might have felt that he paid a small price for deserting the ill-fated colony. On receiving the plethora of reports concerning La Salle, Louis XIV was greatly irritated. There was La Salle’s letter to the minister alleging the intentional and malicious wrecking of Aimable, supported by the procès verbal. Additionally, there was Minet’s letter to Seignelay disclosing that the young engineer had disobeyed royal orders by leaving La Salle. Beaujeu’s lengthy report might have seemed innocuous enough until the intendant Arnoul wrote of the opinion voiced by Joly’s captain that La Salle was not where he claimed to be. The royal ire was expressed in Seignelay’s letter to Arnoul: “His Majesty has seen what he [Arnoul] writes as to the sieur de Beaujeu’s opinion that the sieur de La Salle is not at the mouth of the Mississippi River. It seems that he forms his belief on such feeble conjecture that no great attention is to be given his report, and furthermore that the man has been prejudiced against La Salle’s enterprises from the beginning and . . . is often too free with his judgments.” Arnoul was to inform Joly’s captain that the king would be displeased if Beaujeu spoke against La Salle’s enterprise for any reason.2 Louis le Grand, it seems, was upset at having his preconceived notions challenged—as kings and political leaders have always tended to be. The monarch, the minister continued, had seen La Salle’s report on the loss of Aimable, and it seemed clear that it was the fault of Cap-


tain Aigron. The order for the captain’s confinement in the tower of La Rochelle accompanied the letter. Arnoul was to interrogate him and take depositions from crews of both Aimable and Joly.3 As for Minet, Seignelay wrote, he was at fault for returning to France instead of remaining with La Salle. Additionally, he had been moved to write impertinent letters and to express his opinion instead of obeying orders. It was His Majesty’s wish that Minet also be confined in the tower. Both men were arrested and imprisoned in La Tour de Saint-Nicolas on July 29. On July 31, Arnoul wrote to the minister that Aigron and Minet had been incarcerated as ordered; he intended to question them next day. If he did so, his report of the interrogation had not reached the monarch by August 11, when Louis XIV wrote to remind Arnoul to send him the results forthwith. Minet, however, tells us that “several have been sent to question him [Aigron].”4 Minet was released on September 7, having been incarcerated forty days. Restored to his rank of king’s engineer, he was assigned to work with the commissary-general of fortifications, Sébastien Le Prêtre, Marquis de Vauban. Aigron was confined until the king’s October 30 order to free him reached La Rochelle, probably a week later. By that time the civil suit brought against him in the Admiralty Court at La Rochelle had played itself out with favorable result for the captain. If, as Aigron claimed in one of his depositions to the Admiralty Court, his arrest was merely for the purpose of getting information from him concerning the shipwreck, the information gathering must have been especially intense. Yet Aigron’s release from the aggravation of legal problems may have been short-lived. Mengaud, not satisfied with the failure of his suit to recover salary and reimbursement for clothing lost in the wreck, filed a criminal complaint against the captain on November 16, 1685. He accused Aigron of selling in Jamestown a bundle of cloth salvaged from Aimable’s stores. Mengaud alleged that proceeds from the goods saved from the sinking ship were appropriated to Aigron’s personal benefit. Pierre Georget, having been dragged through the ordeal of the failed civil action against Aigron and Massiot, evidently did not join Mengaud as a complaining witness.5

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THE CLOSING ARGUMENT

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Here the trail grows dim, and many unanswered questions remain. Although the outcome of the suit brought by Mengaud and Georget against Aigron and Massiot seems fairly obvious, no actual judgment or court order has come to light. Nor has it been possible to trace the outcome of the charge subsequently lodged against Aigron, alleging his sale of goods salvaged from the wrecked ship. Documents of the period at La Rochelle appear to have been lost, misfiled, or discarded for lack of storage space. There is also the possibility—though surely an unlikely one in view of Mengaud’s subsequent charge against the captain—that the lack of a judgment signifies an out-of-court settlement. If a settlement had been formalized, it probably would have been recorded before a notary and may still exist in notarial archives, even though the search so far has failed to find it. If there was a settlement at all, it probably was court-ordered and not to Mengaud’s liking. Otherwise, the proceedings must have terminated with the court’s order for dismissal. Numerous other questions remain as well. What was the real motivation of Mengaud and Georget’s suit? Was it simply to recover wages to which they felt they were due and reimbursement for their clothing lost in the wreck? If such were the case, their attorney, well versed as he apparently was in the pertinent maritime law, surely recognized that a favorable outcome was unlikely. Or was it that the plaintiffs acted with the expectation that Aigron, already accused by La Salle of wrecking the ship purposely, if not maliciously, would quickly settle? From a different perspective, the possibility must be considered that it was Mengaud who acted from malice. Did he bear a grudge toward the captain that arose from whatever occurred between them in mid-ocean that resulted in his being relieved of the pilot’s duties? Could the civil action have been in the nature of a preemptive strike, against the possibility that Aigron would bring charges against him? What were the circumstances of the rift between them that apparently caused each of them to skirt the matter in his testimony? And what was Georget’s role in all this? Was he just along for the ride, expecting, by attaching his name to the suit, to share in whatever


award Mengaud might receive? Or was his involvement just a gesture of friendship for the pilot? Mengaud, indeed, might have foreseen a possibility that he would be held responsible for failure to discharge his duties as pilot and perhaps charged with the loss of the flûte. If Aigron is to be believed, La Salle expected the pilot to be at the helm when the ship attempted to enter the bay; instead, an ordinary seaman, Louis Crugeón—unskilled and unsure of himself—was steering the vessel. Aigron, however, appears to have been unsettled by the legal bind he was in; La Salle’s order for him to enter the bay says nothing about Mengaud steering the ship. The captain, on at least two different occasions, attempts to fix blame on the pilot, claiming Mengaud was at the helm and may have caused the ship to run aground by failing to follow the buoys he himself had placed. Did this misrepresentation result from Aigron’s confusion at the time of the mishap or a conscious attempt to draw a false picture? Or, possibly, from poor communication with his lawyer? In any case, the matter was not seriously contested. What effect did Aigron’s imprisonment on the king’s orders have on the outcome of the civil suit? And what effect might the suit, and the evidence presented as it unfolded, have had on keeping him confined during the king’s inquiry? Did the failure of the plaintiffs’ claim result in the denial of La Salle’s charge that the captain had purposely and perhaps maliciously wrecked his vessel? Or was the king satisfied with Arnoul’s interrogation of the captain, in combination with testimony given in the civil suit? Had it been otherwise, and the 1681 maritime law been applied, the captain might have been condemned to death, but the king’s order for his release was tantamount to absolving him of guilt in the loss of his ship. Who indeed caused the wreck of Aimable? Did Aigron, acting from pique and malice, run his ship aground to wreak vengeance on La Salle? Mengaud appears persuasive in his insistence that Aigron had relieved him of the pilot’s duties and relegated him to the status of ordinary seaman, and that piloting the ship at its most crucial time was not his duty. Aigron’s contrary testimony seems weak by comparison, especially when he was forced to admit that Mengaud was not at the helm when the ship moved toward the channel. No documenta-

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tion has been found of the captain’s claim that La Salle had instructed him to have Mengaud steer. Who is to say which version is correct? Among the eyewitnesses to the shipwreck whose views are of record, there was no one who would have acquitted the captain; La Salle, Joutel, Beaujeu, and Minet—not to mention Mengaud and Georget—all judged him guilty. Were they credible witnesses? Or were they prejudiced in their views, each governed by his own particular bias? Minet, by all accounts, was a brash young man, more interested, as the king said, in voicing his opinion than in obeying orders; whereas his account often serves as a counterbalance to Joutel’s, their views of the Aimable disaster are largely in accord. Beaujeu, a seasoned veteran of the sea, appears to have been the most credible of all the witnesses—but was he? He had given advice to Captain Aigron that might have saved the ship, had it been heeded. Aigron ignored him. Minet was a witness to the conversation between the two captains; if there was rancor, Minet fails to reveal it. Orders were orders, Aigron said. But the young engineer tells of another ingredient to the disaster not mentioned elsewhere: the wine with which La Salle had supplied Aimable’s captain and the pilot. The wine, Minet claims, rendered them too daring. Perhaps that explains why Aigron was confused as to who was steering the ship, or even why, as was alleged, he veered outside the marked channel, and possibly why Mengaud, contrary to what we assume his orders to have been, turned the helm over to an ordinary seaman. And what of Joutel, La Salle’s chief lieutenant—or lackey? He was wont to do and say what La Salle wanted him to. Remember his afterthe-fact sounding of the pass to justify La Salle’s claim that Aimable had been lost not by fault of the colony’s leader but by that of her captain? Nothing should have been easier, he asseverated, than to bring the ship safely to harbor within the pass. (Perhaps Joutel should have been at the helm.) Aigron, in defending himself against the civil action, had injected the possibility that La Salle had erred by giving the signal for him to enter the pass at an inauspicious time: before the incoming tide had reached the halfway mark. There is no evidence to support or deny such speculation. Whether true or not, La Salle and his motives are


suspect on several accounts. The record that followed him to the end of his life was one of shifting to others the blame for his own failings. Furthermore, the lease agreement with Massiot provided that in the event that the ship were lost, La Salle and the shipowner would share responsibility. Also, had La Salle been forced to shoulder responsibility for the loss of Aimable, with all her cargo of tools, weaponry, and provisions on which the success of his enterprise depended, he would have lost face with all his financial backers, as well as with the king. As it was, the episode brought him and his enterprise one step closer to a final reckoning. No, he could not be blamed. Aigron was the one; he was the ship’s captain. La Salle, following the shipwreck, declared that he had reason to distrust the captain—a matter he seems not to have thought of previously—and had therefore ordered the captain to have his ship towed over the bar. Yet, if La Salle did not trust the captain, why did he not stay with the ship rather than wandering off on shore? Would that have helped save the vessel? Or was it that, in his own lack of expertise in navigation and seamanship, he gave orders that were impossible to carry out safely? There must always be a shadow of doubt attached to La Salle and his culpability in the matter. Yet there may be one other person who deserves a share of blame also: Mengaud. This man had been engaged by Massiot to pilot Aigron’s ship. His abdication of his position—willfully or not—played a part in Aimable’s ultimate fate. Had he been at the helm or directing the course when the ship attempted to enter the channel . . . ? Was he indeed imbibing with Aigron just before the ship got underway one last time? Could that have been the source of the bitterness between them, each seeking to blame the other for the loss while attempting to shield himself? Was their disagreement in mid-ocean over which course to follow only a smoke screen? Whether or not Aigron was guilty of the charges leveled at him by La Salle and the plaintiffs in the lawsuit—that he wrecked his ship through ignorance or malice—he did not come into the court with clean hands. Questions remain as to whether he lightened his ship as much as he could, or to the extent La Salle had ordered. By all accounts, he turned a deaf ear not only to Beaujeu’s sound advice but

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to others’ as well. La Salle sent Belle’s pilot, Elie Richaud, who had taken his own vessel through the channel the day before, to assist with Aimable’s entry, but Aigron spurned his assistance. As the ship proceeded toward the danger zone, the lookout at the masthead is said to have shouted a warning to steer to windward; Aigron countermanded the advice, directing the ship toward the shoal. It is alleged that when the ship struck bottom, the captain failed to put out anchors or take in sails in time to make it possible to kedge her off the reef, but instead took contrary actions that made her stick fast. The need at that point was to keep the ship from breaking up. With the masts bobbing in the wind, causing the ship to rock in such a manner as to stress the hull, he gave no order to have the masts cut down. It is alleged that Aigron’s personal effects had been removed from the ship before she wrecked, suggesting that he had planned to run the vessel aground. What was to be made of such innuendo? Should these allegations be taken as evidence that he wrecked the ship intentionally? Or merely as the mark of a stubborn man whose intransigence cast doubt upon his behavior? In either event, it may have been Captain Aigron’s lucky day when Mengaud and Georget filed suit against him. Most assuredly, as the evidence unfolded, the king’s agents were listening. At the same time, the intendant Arnoul was taking Aigron’s statement in extensive interviews during the captain’s confinement in the tower. Aigron, through his attorney, defended himself eloquently in his final summation. Thereby, he perhaps saved himself from the dire penalties mandated by the Ordinance of 1681 for captains guilty of intentionally wrecking a vessel. For the loss of Aimable, many shared the blame, and there was enough blame to go around. Even after three hundred years, it is still impossible to say who deserves the greatest share. Historically, La Salle’s charges against Captain Aigron have generally been accepted at face value, and all the blame heaped on the captain. There is yet one more argument to be put forth in Aigron’s favor: what possible motive could he have had for intentionally causing the wreck, a deed that surely could be the action only of an insane man? Captain Aigron, from all that can be known of him, was not insane. Prior to this time, he had sailed Aimable in foreign seas and brought


her safely back to the home port. His was an occupation that required not only great knowledge but steadiness and skill. His irritation with La Salle—who, despite La Salle’s lack of nautical savvy, was wont to base his orders more on his own desires than on the possible—is readily understandable. But surely only a fool would have purposely put his ship aground on such a savage shore. There is, however, one possible explanation. In keeping with customary procedure for shipowners of this period, Jean Massiot le jeune probably insured the ship for a sizable amount for her voyage into unknown seas. A more extensive investigation than has yet been made might reveal whether Massiot was awarded a settlement for the loss. If so, new suspicions might well arise concerning the captain’s motivation. As it now stands, it seems history has done Captain Aigron a grave injustice. The wreck of Aimable probably was caused by the state of confusion that prevailed at the time, confusion manifest in the reports of different water depths over the bar; in the multiple and often disparate pieces of advice poured upon the captain; and in the dissension on his own ship. Aigron was besieged with advice from so many sources, he may have turned a deaf ear to all of it and determined to steer his own course, wrong though it may have been. Minet’s report of wine having flowed too freely at an inappropriate time is not confirmed by any other source. If it is accurate in every respect, La Salle himself was to blame. The leader’s conduct in other respects leaves him open to criticism. He alone could have cleared the confusion that dominated the scene. The apparent falsity of some of the statements in his letter to the minister raises questions concerning his motives and his conduct. As the spotlight shines more intensely on his leadership qualities, he is found wanting to a degree that warrants harsh judgment. Could he have withstood, as Aigron did, a prolonged inquiry by an agent of the king? Perhaps the accuser should have been the accused.

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PART TWO

T H E E V I DE N C E


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LA SALLE'S REPORTS

A . THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF THE SHIPWRECK: PROCÈS VERBAL

Ten days after the disaster, La Salle compiled his official report to the Crown, covering not only Aimable’s wreck but also an account of happenings since the ships arrived at the mouth of Matagorda Bay. That he mistakenly identified this bay as the mouth of the Mississippi River is indicated by his calling it the Colbert River, the name he had given the Mississippi to honor the family name of the naval minister, the Marquis de Seignelay, and his father, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The report, signed by La Salle himself and ten other persons, makes no direct charge that Aigron purposely wrecked his ship, but alleges behavior that points to that conclusion. This instrument, combined with the accompanying letter to Seignelay, forms the basis of the subsequent imprisonment and interrogation of Captain Aigron and provides provocation for the civil suit brought against him by Mengaud and Georget. Official report of the sieur de La Salle on the wreck of the storeship Aimable at the entrance to the River Colbert (Procès verbal).1 March 1, 1685

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t On the eleventh of February 1685 they arrived at the roadstead of the river at about three o’clock in the afternoon. On the fifteenth, upon the report of the pilot of the ship Belle that there were twelve feet of water on the bar, he [La Salle] went ashore to examine the channel and found ten feet of water at the most. He returned to the ship and told Captain Aigron, commanding the Aimable, that he must bring in his vessel when the winds had raised the water in the channel, or unload it by means of the Belle, and that, if he could not get in, he could follow the Joly to the Baye du Saint Esprit after unloading. On the seventeenth, he, De La Salle, went to take soundings, with all the pilots. They found nine feet of water at low tide and ten at high tide. Beacons [buoys]2 were fixed in the water (put in by the pilot of the Aimable), and two [markers] on shore; and the one set had to be used in conjunction with the other, as all the pilots agreed. On the eighteenth, the Belle went in by the way thus marked, at low tide, and found ten feet of water, at most. On the nineteenth, he had a part of the ship unloaded by the longboats of the Aimable, the Joly, and the Belle. He sent the pilot of the Belle on board the Aimable to assist in taking her in, but the said Aigron3 refused him, saying he would get in without him. The sieur de La Salle wrote him [Aigron] a letter on the nineteenth. He told him to unload into the longboats the lead, iron, cannons, barrels, axes, cases of ironwork, and hardware; that while the longboats were making two trips, Aigron should empty the hold of water, so that the next day he might come within two and a half fathoms under sail; that, when the tide was nearly full, they would make a smoke signal from shore, and Aigron was to begin to have his vessel towed in.4 On the twentieth, the sieur de Beaujeu went on board Aigron’s ship with the sieur Gabaret [Joly’s second pilot]. His pilot told Aigron that he had found only eight and a half feet of water, and that he would not be able to go in, as there was too much swell.

L A S A L L E ’ S R E P O RT S

Aigron replied that he would take even the Joly in; and, after the pilot had gone to take soundings again, he set sail and came under sail to within two and a half fathoms. He then sent away the Joly’s longboat and that of the Belle, saying he did not want them, and sent word to De La Salle that he was only waiting for the smoke signal. He, De La Salle, wished to go on board but was prevented from doing so by the arrival of a number of Indians who had surprised some of his men. When the tide was half up, the smoke signal was given. Aigron, instead of having his ship towed, got underway and set sail. A sailor of the Aimable at the top of the mizzen mast shouted that they must go to windward. The pilot and the captain bore up, although they had already passed the buoys and were to leeward of those that were in the sea and on shore. Moreover, the ship having begun to run aground, another sailor on the ship who was sounding warned them that there were only eight feet of water, and that quite correctly. The pilot, having taken the [sounding] lead, said there were ten feet. At last the ship struck bottom and the pilot wished to anchor; but Captain Aigron would not do so. Although he was already far to leeward of all the buoys, he ordered them to loose the bottom of the mainsail, which was brailed up, and spread the sprit sail to the wind in order to ground higher up still. When De La Salle saw this from the shore, he sent the Joly’s longboat to compel Aigron to come back to windward. Immediately afterward [he sent] the longboat and the pilot of the Belle to assist him, but they were unable to get there in time, the ship having run fast aground. Then, instead of casting the sheet anchor, so as to make use of the other for towing [kedging], Aigron let go his kedge anchor. The sieur Duhamel, when he came on board the Aimable upon the signals they had made asking for assistance, was unable to get it out of danger, as he would have done, for he could not even find an ax for cutting the stopper of the sheet-cable in sufficient time. On the twenty-first, the sieur de La Salle went on board the Aimable, having been unable to go sooner for want of a boat.

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Observing that the ship was moored with only a small hawser, he urged Aigron in vain to have the sheet anchor taken out to the offing, foreseeing that if the hawser happened to break the waves would cast the vessel upon the highest part of the sand bank. This in fact happened. Then the sieur de Beaujeu went on board the Aimable, where it also took him some time to persuade Aigron to make so necessary a maneuver. He would not even have some empty and useless barrels taken off, which were encumbering the working of the ship [to the extent] that he could not lighten the ship much. And afterward, although he saw that the masts were putting the ship in danger of breaking up, he had to be forced to consent to cut down the masts, which were about to make him lose the ship entirely, and all that was in it, as actually happened, for there was left in it more than sixty casks of wine or brandy, also the bacon and beef taken on board except nine barrels, a quantity of beans and flour, four cannons (twelve pounders),5 sixteen hundred and twenty cannon balls, four hundred grenades, forty hundredweight of iron, fifty or sixty hundredweight of lead, most of the fittings of the forge, the mill cordage, several chests of arms and tools, together with almost all the clothing of the soldiers and passengers, and almost all the medicines, a lot of axes, tobacco, knives, and other commodities, which had been put on board for trading with the Indians for provisions. Such of these things as were saved were spoilt by sea-water. Nothing was found in the said ship belonging to Aigron, who had saved even his jams. Signed: Cavelier de La Salle, P[ierre] Duhaut,6 D[ominique] Duhaut, Le Carpentier, Thibault, Le Gros, J. Planterose, Huzier, Barbier, Ravenell, De Sablonnière

B. LA SALLE’S LETTER TO THE MARQUIS DE SEIGNELAY

The official report to the king finished, La Salle turns his hand to writing to the minister Seignelay, setting forth his allegations that Captain Aigron wrecked his ship “through malice or ignorance.” His


identification of Matagorda Bay as “The Western Mouth of the River Colbert” signifies La Salle’s changing conception of his location. He first mistook Matagorda Bay for the mouth of the Mississippi River itself, but later decided that it was the Atchafalaya River, a large distributary he had observed when descending the Mississippi in 1682. At the western mouth of the River Colbert7 The fourth of March, 1685

t Monseigneur, We parted company with the Joly the night between the third and the fourth of January. Being to windward of us, she left us a few days after we had sighted the coast of Florida.8 We were therefore obliged, in order to rejoin her, to keep along by the shore as far as 27½ degrees north latitude. At last we fell in with one another again and arrived here safely on the fourteenth of February. As the season was well advanced, and I saw that I had very little time left in which to complete the enterprise entrusted to me, I decided to go up this (smaller) mouth of the River Colbert rather than go back to the larger one, twenty-five to thirty leagues from here toward the northeast. We had observed it on the sixth of January, but had failed to recognize it because we believed, in accordance with the report of the pilots of His Majesty’s ship and ours, that we had not yet passed the Baye du Saint Esprit. At last, after we had kept sailing along the shore, very near in and in fine weather, the latitude showed us that they were mistaken. What we had seen on the sixth of January was in fact the principal entrance to the river we were seeking.9 If spring had not been so near at hand, I should have gone back there. The fear of passing the remainder of the winter in working up toward the east, from which quarter the winds blow almost continually, driving the current west, made me determine to go up the river from here and to request M. de Beaujeu to go and examine the other mouth in order to report to Your Highness concerning it. This [That] one is

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situated at about 28 degrees 18 to 20 minutes north latitude.10 The channel is broad and deep within the bar, there being five or six fathoms of water almost everywhere. It is true that there are only two fathoms at the shallowest part, at least at this season, when the river, having all its branches frozen, has too slight a current to cleanse its channel and drive back the sand that the sea is continually throwing into it.11 It is also to be observed that when the wind blows from off the shore for a long time, the level of the water falls; at times there are only ten feet of water left on the bar, as we noticed on the day our pilots took soundings. They have drawn up a report of them. When the water is driven back by winds from the offing, there is as much as thirteen feet of water, especially at new moon, when the tides are strongest, at least in winter.12 These two channels issue from a sort of bay, very long and very broad, into which the River Colbert falls; the water is as salty as that of the sea. There is a tide in it. As one cannot see from one side to the other, it was easy for me to make a mistake when I came down into it, by taking this expanse of salt water for the sea, since one cannot see the end of it, and I could not cross it, having only birchbark canoes.13 The sort of sandy island between the sea and this salt pool breaks the force of the waves, so that the river has nothing to stay its course when it flows into it, and appears to form a very fine harbor; but the channels by which it runs into the open sea are not so safe because of the sand that the winds drive into them. This channel [Pass Cavallo at Matagorda Bay], nevertheless, is ten or twelve feet deep at the shallowest part, and I believe the other is much better, for it has an opening of more than three leagues, more than half of which appeared to us to have a rather good channel, much deeper than this one. The bark Belle, drawing seven and a half feet of water, came in under sail, at low tide, on the eighteenth of February. On the nineteenth, I asked Captain Aigron, who was in command of the Aimable, a store-ship of 180 tons, drawing fully laden nine feet of water, whether he could get in by lightening his vessel; and he assured me that he could do so without risk. I sent him the pilot who had taken in the Belle, and he refused to have him. His own pilot had sounded the channel


several times, and set up beacons [buoys]; but, as I thought I had reason to distrust him [Aigron], I ordered him to have his ship towed in, and to discharge all the heavy part of his cargo.14 Instead of obeying, he sailed on and steered straight into a sand-bank on the other [east] side of the channel, where he wrecked the ship, sailing to the west-northwest instead of west by southwest,15 where he could not but know that it was necessary to steer, since he had seen the report the pilots had drawn up on fixing the markers [range] on shore, which he saw quite distinctly, the wind being very favorable and light, and the weather fine and calm. Promptly, as I set to work to save what was in the vessel, [it became evident that] the captain’s malice or ignorance has caused me to lose all the liquors, meat, beans, a great portion of the iron, some lead, and almost all the tools intended for the post, four large cannons, all the cannon balls, grenades, and a quantity of arms, clothing for the soldiers, and commodities necessary for the Indians. As there are many circumstances that cause me to attribute this wreck to malice, I have had a report upon it drawn up, and I have the honor of sending it to Your Highness together with the deposition of several witnesses. Although losses so heavy and the great length of the voyage . . . entail great delays and do me a very great injury, . . . I hope to make such good use of the little I have left that Your Highness, after receiving the satisfaction which you may expect from it, will be so good as to take into consideration so many misfortunes, which will never in any way diminish my zeal. As M. de Beaujeu was unable while in the roadstead to hand over to me the four cannons he had to give me and the cannon balls . . . , which are under his ballast and difficult to get at, I do not think Your Highness will disapprove of my going a little farther into the river for this year so as to be out of reach of the Spanish forces while waiting for the reinforcements that I am hoping Your Highness will be good enough to send me. After that you shall have certain news of the success of what I have promised you, notwithstanding so many misfortunes. The suspicions I had had at St. Domingue of this captain’s evil intentions, of which I had been given several warnings, had

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obliged me to embark on that ship. This accident would not have happened to it if I had been able to go back on board, as I had hoped to do, on the day it was to come in. An alarm raised in the camp by the arrival of a number of Indians, at the moment I was stepping into the boat, prevented me from going, and gave the captain the opportunity of carrying out a plan that all his crew believe he had formed a long time ago. It remains for me, Monseigneur, only to beg Your Highness to continue to show me the same kindness as you have hitherto done and not permit anyone in my absence to take advantage of the occurrence of these misfortunes, to which I have not contributed in any way; to attack the genuineness of my motives, the results of which will, I hope, turn out so well that you will be satisfied with me. All these occurrences, coupled with the protracted voyage, which may put me in difficulty, lead me to decide, before taking any definite action, to go to the Illinois country in order to hear the latest news from France, so that I may settle what I am to do . . . and to carry out my enterprise at once unless news that peace has been concluded makes it necessary for me to await further orders from Your Highness. However little the soldiers who follow me are accustomed to war, I venture to affirm that I shall do all that I hoped to do with them. As the chief part of the work is to be done by the Indians,16 and they will not be aware of the inexperience of the troops, they will believe themselves to be as strongly supported by them as they could have been by older soldiers. If peace has not been published in Canada, I shall act as if war were certain, resolved to devote my life and all my interests to your glory. I ought to have no other interest than to deserve the honor of pleasing you, and to be able to say with deep respect that I am, Monseigneur, Your Highness’s most humble, most obedient, and most faithful servant, De La Salle

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CHARGE AND REBUTTAL

uly 9, 1685. Zacharie Mengaud and Pierre Georget file suit through their attorney, Michel Rochard, against Claude Aigron, captain of Aimable, and Jean Massiot the younger, the ship’s owner. They seek wages for the time they served on the ship during the voyage to the Gulf of Mexico with La Salle and recompense for clothing they lost in the shipwreck. The petition was received by Moïse Louis Delisle, king’s counselor, chief intendant, and civil and criminal judge of the Admiralty at La Rochelle.

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For the judge of the Admiralty . . . [Now come] Zacharie Mengaud,2 former pilot of the ship Aimable, commanded by Claude Aigron, and Pierre Georget, gunner on that ship, saying that about one year ago the sieur Massiot hired them to serve on that ship as pilot and gunner with monthly wages of forty pounds [livres] for the pilot and twenty pounds for the gunner. They were paid two months in advance, according to their contract. They embarked on the said ship and sailed on July 24, 1684, to go under the conduct of the sieur de La Salle to the place of his choice in New Spain. On the voyage they proceeded by way of Saint-Domingue to take

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on water, and while there the aforementioned Aigron sold some of the provisions that were on board for feeding the crew. As a result of this sale he reduced [the rations of] his crew to three ounces of bread per day [per man]. Once arrived before the river named Colbert by the said sieur de La Salle, they cast anchor last February 15. [Captain] Aigron sent the aforementioned Mengaud to sound the bar of the river to determine whether there was enough water for the ship to enter. Following Aigron’s order, Mengaud sounded the bar in the presence of the sieur de La Salle, the pilot of the ship named la Belle, and two pilots from the king’s ship [le Joly] commanded by Monsieur de Beaujeu. They found only nine feet of water on the bar and reported it to Aigron, showing him that it was impossible for the ship to enter, since she drew nine feet of water and the waves fell by three meters on the bar. Nevertheless, by deliberate mischief, without the crew’s assent and against the advice of sieur de Beaujeu (who shouted to him when he saw the ship getting underway that he was going to lose her), he ran her aground on the bar, where she was lost, on the twentieth of February. The supplicants had to embark with the rest of the crew on the king’s ship commanded by the said sieur de Beaujeu [to return to France], where they arrived [July] 8.3 Since they lost most of their clothes in that wreck, and since it happened because of the malice and obstinacy of the said master against the will of the pilot as well as the crew, he cannot be excused from paying their wages and the value of their clothing: neither he nor the owner of the ship who hired them. He is obligated to do the right thing; hence their [the plaintiffs’] appeal to you [Judge Delisle]. May it please you to have summoned before you the said sieur Massiot and the said Aigron, jointly, to have them ordered to pay [the petitioners] nine and a half months’ wages, for the abovementioned reason, and to pay them the value of their clothing lost in the aforesaid wreck, and at cost. . . . . . . . . . Rochard, attorney . . . . . . Petition [received and filed] on July 17, 1685. [Signed] Delisle.

C H A R G E A N D R E B U T TA L

An order dated July 19, 1685, attached to the foregoing, summons Jean Massiot to appear before the Admiralty Court the following Saturday to answer the plaintiffs’ petition. The record of this appearance has not been found. To you, the sieur Massiot, Commissioner of the Navy, living in this city, and upon the request of Messrs. Georget and Mengaud, plaintiffs, [represented] in the house [of] sieur Rochard, attorney at the Tribunal of La Rochelle . . . to give you copy of the petition . . . so that nothing [or no one] is ignored, and another for the proceeding. . . . This summons [is given you] to appear this Saturday, when court is in session, Monsieur the judge of the Admiralty of La Rochelle presiding. Done in La Rochelle, this nineteenth day of July, 1685 [Several words missing; “Saturday” and “nine” appear, apparently designating the time at which the signature (Auril) was affixed.]

July 18, 1685. Captain Aigron deposes to the Admiralty judge and the king’s prosecutor on the loss of his ship, offering in addition depositions by the ship’s carpenter and the ship’s surgeon, as well as a sailor on the Joly. Although this deposition is not a direct response to the plaintiffs’ petition, Aigron’s acknowledgment indicates his understanding that the information he gives may be used to the plaintiffs’ benefit. Today, the eighteenth day of July, 1685, before us, Moïse Louis Delisle, sieur de Pallussay, counselor for the king and his chief intendant and ordinary judge for civil and criminal affairs at the seat of the Admiralty in this city of La Rochelle, in the presence of the king’s prosecutor, appeared in person Claude Aigron, of this city, professing to be a Protestant, former captain of the ship named Aimable, of about one hundred and fifty tons, who, after swearing to tell the truth, told us that he left these roadsteads aboard the said ship on July 24 of last year to go to the Gulf of Mexico to land soldiers and other people [settlers] who were taken on board for His Majesty’s service. [The ships,] commanded by the sieur de Beaujeu, remained together until Petit-Goâve [Saint-

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Domingue, or Haiti], where the sieur de La Salle left the ship Joly and embarked on his [Aigron’s] vessel [Aimable]. They arrived at that place the tenth of October of the same year and left the following twenty-fifth day of November for the Gulf of Mexico. They arrived at the entrance of the Colbert River on the fourteenth day of last February and cast anchor in about five fathoms. At that place, the sieur de La Salle was taken ashore to reconnoiter, and after a few hours he went back aboard and said that they had arrived at the place he intended. The next day the sieur de Beaujeu gathered all the pilots of his ship as well as Aigron’s and had them sound the entrance of the river. They found only nine feet of water at low tide where it was the [deepest]. Since the sieur de La Salle was ashore on the nineteenth of the month [February], he sent to ask the person giving the deposition [Aigron] whether he wanted to enter his ship, and he replied . . . that his ship had to be lightened before entering the river. That same day, the sieur de La Salle sent to his [Aigron’s] ship two shallops from the sieur de Beaujeu’s ship. In these and his own, following La Salle’s orders, he [Aigron] loaded the heaviest things he had on board, keeping his provisions. In keeping with La Salle’s orders, he sent him his pilot, named Zacharie Mengaud, to mark the passage for entering the river. The sieur de La Salle, with the said Mengaud, had two wooden poles planted to indicate the place where the ship had to pass. And since the bar is extremely long and the two wooden poles erected [as a range] were not sufficient to mark the passage into the river, the person giving this deposition [Aigron] sent Mengaud to put out three buoys with grapnels to mark the channel better. On the farthest buoy he had an empty cask attached so that it would be easier to see from the ship. The same day, around eventide, the sieur de La Salle, who was still ashore, sent Jacques Lefort, master of the Joly’s shallop, to tell him that he should not be afraid to take his ship into the river the next day and that there would be enough water [over the bar]. When it was time to get underway to go in, he would send him a smoke signal, which he did next day, the twentieth of the month [February], at about two o’clock in the afternoon.


As soon as the person giving this deposition [Aigron] noticed the smoke, he weighed anchor and followed the first channel marker to go to the second one. Now, as he approached, his ship, which was steered by the said Mengaud, her pilot,4 touched bottom because there was not enough water. Seeing this, he had her sails furled and put out one of her anchors to wait for more water [rising tide], and right after putting out an anchor, the cable attached to that anchor broke, forcing him to drop another. Half an hour later the fluke of the second anchor broke. The cable and the anchor broke because of the heavy swells, which were pushing the ship farther, into water only seven feet deep, even though he had the main anchor dropped as soon as the fluke broke. Because the sea and the swells were so rough, his ship was severely strained. They spent the night at that place without being able to raise [the ship] because of the shallow water. The next day, the twenty-first, the sieur de La Salle went to the ship, and upon his order the shallops of sieur de Beaujeu were fetched to lighten his [Aigron’s] ship more, which they did. Since his ship was being strained so, she stuck fast in spite of all the care and pain shown by the person giving this deposition and members of his crew. Afterward, the wines and brandies were lost, [while] her other cargo was cast adrift by the sea and the on-shore winds. These goods were salvaged, with eight pieces of cannon and a few other pieces of gear and rigging, all of which the sieur de La Salle seized.5 Then the person giving this deposition embarked with his crew aboard the sieur de Beaujeu’s ship and brought them to Rochefort, where they arrived on the eighth of this month [July 1685].6 This is all that we have to declare. After his deposition was read to him, [Aigron] persisted and declared that he had nothing to add to or suppress from it. This deposition was received in court on the plaintiffs’ behalf, and for them to use as needed. Done before us the said Delisle, counselor and aforesaid judge, on the day and year given above. [Signed] Claude Aigron, Delisle, and Dubouchet.

Statements of the ship’s carpenter and ship’s surgeon, appended to Captain Aigron’s deposition:

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Pierre Dubois of this city, who professes to be Protestant, former carpenter of the said ship, about twenty-seven years of age, after swearing to tell the truth in everything, told us, after Aigron’s deposition was read to him, that it contains the truth in its entirety. He had nothing to add or suppress except that during the crossing to their destination, there were on their vessel four priests with the sieur de La Salle who said Mass every day in the captain’s quarters.7 Which is all that he said. Done before us the said Delisle, counselor and aforesaid judge, on the day and year stated. Signed, Claude Aigron, Delisle, and Dubouchet. Gabriel Robellin of Chouty-en-Bretagne, surgeon of the said ship, professing to be of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, of about twenty-three years of age, after swearing to tell the truth, and after Aigron’s deposition was read to him, told us that it contains the truth in its entirety and that he had nothing to add or suppress since it was serious and authentic. Which is all that he said except that there were on board with the sieur de La Salle [words missing . . . the four priests?] who said Mass in Aigron’s quarters and everywhere it pleased them without any objection on Aigron’s part.8 After being read the foregoing, he persisted and declared that he had nothing to add or to suppress. Done before us the said Delisle, counselor and judge, on the day and year given. Signed, Claude Aigron, Delisle, and Dubouchet. Signed, Tharay, bailiff.

A copy of a statement of an officer of Joly, Jacques Lefort, on circumstances surrounding the wreck of l’Aimable, made March 19, 1685, appended to Captain Aigron’s deposition: The nineteenth day of the month of February, 1685, around six o’clock in the evening, the sieur de Beaujeu, my captain, sent me ashore in the shallop to receive the sieur de La Salle’s orders, and after I got there, my said sieur de La Salle told me that it was necessary to go aboard Captain Aigron’s ship to load the shallop and unload the flûte. I recall well that the sieur de La Salle enjoined me to tell Captain Aigron not to have any apprehension for the next day, but to


enter the river and that there was enough water. The loaded shallop being ashore the following day, the twentieth of said month, around seven o’clock in the morning, my said sieur de La Salle told me that we had to go back and load the shallop aboard the flûte. He enjoined me also to tell Captain Aigron not to remove anything more from his hold, but simply to clear his deck, and to ready himself for entering the river as soon as he saw the smoke on shore, which was to be the signal to enter. I did not neglect telling this to Captain Aigron, in witness whereof I have signed the present declaration as being certain and authentic. Done aboard the Joly, this nineteenth day of March, 1685. [Signed] J. Lefort.9

A fragment of document addressed to Jean Massiot the younger sets the date for a hearing and orders him to appear: Addressed to the sieur Jean Massiot, Commissioner of the Navy, defendant against Zacharie Mengaud, pilot, plaintiff [under this word “plaintiff” on the right], 1685, Poirel, Rochard, Barraud, on July 21, 1685, requested for next August 11, 1685, appointed to provide . . .

July 27, 1685. Captain Aigron, through his attorney Denis Barraud, argues for dismissal of the suit on grounds that everything leading up to the shipwreck was done according to La Salle’s orders, and that the shipwreck itself was the direct result of La Salle’s sending the signal at the wrong time or Mengaud’s failure to follow the channel indicated by the markers he himself had set up. In the case of Zacharie Mengaud, former pilot of the ship Aimable, and Pierre Georget, gunner in the said ship, plaintiffs represented by Rochard, against Claude Aigron, captain of the ship, domiciled in this city, and Jean Massiot, merchant, and the said Aigron, defendants, Aigron [represented] by Barraud and Massiot by Poirel. Aigron says that, since there is a petition and an accusation against the sieur Massiot from the plaintiffs’ pleadings, suggesting that he be held [responsible] for the action of the said

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Aigron, whom he [Massiot] had engaged as master of his ship, it is in his [Aigron’s] interest that the case be investigated with [that of] the sieur Massiot, summoned upon the purposes of the plaintiffs’ petition, to show that, regarding the wreck referred to in the petition, there is no blame on his part, as the plaintiffs agree that they had embarked under the conduct of the sieur de La Salle, to go where he would direct them. They agree that it is the sieur de La Salle who had them sound in his presence the bar over which they had to pass to enter the river he had designated. All this was without the participation of the defendant, who stayed with his vessel as his duty demanded, with nothing to guide him but sieur de La Salle’s order, which had been given him for that purpose. And this is also why, after having the bar sounded at low tide and knowing by how much the sea would rise at high tide, he had channel markers put out by the pilot Mengaud and people assigned to [the same task]. He [La Salle] ordered Aigron to take his ship in at the signal he would send him from the shore and to let the pilot Mengaud steer, because it was the duty of his function and because he himself had sounded and reconnoitered where the markers had been placed for entering this river. Whether misfortune caused the sieur de La Salle to fail to take his measures well before sending from the shore his signal to enter or Mengaud himself mistook the entrance he was to follow along the sea marks, it remains without question that no blame can be laid upon Aigron, who had to follow explicitly the orders the sieur de La Salle had placed in the sieur Massiot’s hand, and who had to represent them well.10 To the plaintiffs he [Aigron] offers a copy of his crew’s deposition done at the Admiralty office upon his return from his voyage. It contains the truth and the question must be resolved on the basis of the ordinance and have the plaintiffs’ petition and complaint dismissed because among the entire crew they are the only ones to accuse him here without anyone complaining about his sale of some provisions, which he was forced to do to get fresh food and fresh meat on board for the passengers and the crew.11 This means in any case that the plaintiffs are [not entitled to bring suit] and must pay costs. And copy of the deposition of the sieur


Lefort, officer on the sieur de Beaujeu’s ship, who commanded a shallop, also being useful, and following the sieur de La Salle’s orders to bring them to the said Aigron. [Filed] for copy[ing] the twenty-seventh of July, 1685. [signature] Barraud.

On July 28 the king’s order for Aigron’s arrest reached the intendant Pierre Arnoul. The order, dated July 22, was accompanied by another for Minet’s arrest for having disobeyed his orders to remain with La Salle. Both Aigron and Minet were placed in the Saint-Nicolas Tower of La Rochelle on July 29. Arnoul was ordered to interrogate Aigron and take depositions from crew members of both Aimable and Joly. July 30, 1685. Captain Aigron, claiming no obstacle to dismissal of the suit against him, with costs charged to the plaintiffs, offers in evidence copies of his orders: those from Massiot the previous year for the conduct of the voyage to America with La Salle, and those given him by La Salle, both before the final departure from France and on the Texas coast. In the case of Zacharie Mengaud, former pilot of the ship Aimable, and Pierre Georget, gunner of the said ship, plaintiffs, represented by Rochard, against Claude Aigron, former captain of said ship, and Jean Massiot, merchant, defendants. Aigron [is represented] by Barraud, Massiot by Poirel. Aigron says in his defense what he claimed in his petition of July 27. He cites a copy of the orders given him by the sieur Massiot, which he [Aigron] was obliged to follow, and letters of the sieur de La Salle that he has mentioned . . . with a copy of the deposition, and of the attestation furnished by him. There is no obstacle to dismissal [of the case against him], with [court] costs. For copy the second of August 1685. Barraud. Master Didier Poirel, attorney, notified of the above on the third of August, 1685. [Signature] Auril

Aigron supplies the following documents in his own defense. First, the orders given him by Massiot:

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Captain Aigron will follow fully Monsieur de La Salle’s orders during his crossing as if I myself were giving them, and he [La Salle] may keep the ship as long as he pleases and send her to places he may deem appropriate. In case he sends him [Aigron] back to Martinique, he will speak to Monsieur Petit, general deputy of the Royal Compagnie of Africa, whose orders he will follow for taking on cargo and for his return [voyage]. [Captain Aigron is enjoined] to be moderate in all things, to have plenty of provisions and to order everything on his vessel. [I am] putting my trust in him, praying God that he take good care of himself. Done at La Rochelle, on the first of July, 1684. [Signed] Jean Massiot the younger.

Second, the order given Aigron by La Salle upon returning to Rochefort at the start of the voyage for emergency repairs to Joly (replacing a broken bowsprit), demonstrating Aigron’s subservience to La Salle: Aboard le Joly, July 30 [1684] Captain Aigron will allow no one to go ashore from the Chefdebois roadstead, where he will anchor with the ketch [Saint-François]; he will remain at the ready to get underway as soon as he sees Belle making sail at the island of Aix, where she will have to anchor with Joly. If he sends his shallop ashore, he will let only his sailors go. I am his most humble servant, [signed] de La Salle.

And another of La Salle’s orders on the Texas coast, the day before Aimable was wrecked: On shore the nineteenth of February, 1685. Captain Aigron will oblige me by sending his shallop as soon as possible to take two indisposed persons to La Rochelle [aboard the Joly]. At the same time it will take on water. [Signed] de La Salle.

La Salle’s order to Aigron for taking Aimable into Matagorda Bay:


Ashore, the nineteenth of February, 1685. Sir, I am sending you the two shallops and the rope that was found on la Belle. I am asking today for Monsieur Beaujeu’s [shallop]; you may load it with the lead, iron, some cannons, barrels of axes and boxes of iron and hardware. I do not want anyone to touch the provisions, and after this, while the shallops make two trips, simply empty your water and prepare whatever buoys you can find so that tomorrow morning you can draw nearer to two and a half fathoms under sail, after loading your ship so that the stern draws as little water as possible and the bow draws almost as much. Then, when the tide is almost at half-flood, we will make a smoke signal ashore. At that time you will proceed under tow if you cannot make sail.12 Since your tows will be long, I do not believe you will need more than two. The water here is so easy [to take on] that you must not regret [the loss of] your own. Also put aboard with Dumesny everything that is in my room and my chest of papers, on the first trip. Since I must write to Court, I cannot go aboard. I will write to Monsieur Massiot, and you will be pleased with me, as I am, sir, your devoted servant, De La Salle.

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ugust 4, 1685. In preparation for the approaching hearing, the plaintiffs support their claim with a new brief. They attack the deposition Captain Aigron gave upon their return to France—a customary procedure for returning captains, not a part of the court record—which claimed that Aigron deposed one day after the due date to protect himself against the plaintiffs’ allegations. They also cite the captain’s imprisonment on complaints by “La Salle and Captain Beaujeu.” They challenge Aigron’s claim that Mengaud was at the helm when the ship was wrecked. In the case (referred to by the bailiff Auril’s writ of July 9 last) of Zacharie Mengaud, pilot, and Pierre Georget, master gunner, plaintiffs, represented by Rochard the elder, against Jean Massiot, Commissioner of the Navy, and Claude Aigron, ship captain, defendants, represented by Poirel and Barraud, Mengaud and Georget declare in response to the brief and document filed by Aigron: First, that in reference to the deposition he made at the Admiralty clerk’s office on the nineteenth of July last, one needs only to see that the plaintiffs’ petition is [dated] one day [after] this deposition to recognize its suspicious nature and realize that it

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was done by Aigron not long after his return, and after the delay permitted by the ordinance, only to thwart the plaintiffs’ claim. To acknowledge the faultiness of this deposition, one has only to consider that it was not done by Aigron [himself], [but] by the surgeon and the ship’s carpenter, although the ship’s crew consisted of twenty-five men. Thus, one can rightly submit that all the sailors of the crew refused, with the pilot, to endorse such a deposition, which indeed is found to be contrary to the truth presented by the plaintiffs’ petition, showing that he lost the ship where he ran her aground maliciously and against the will of the entire crew. This is a truth defended against him and affirmed as fact, by the sailors of the ship’s crew as well as by Monsieur de Beaujeu and his crew, the proof being all the more acceptable since the [King’s] Court, after being informed of Aigron’s malfeasance, had him arrested; this constitutes the beginning of proof against him. Furthermore, the letters that he has introduced are not useful for justifying him, as he imagines, because one does not contest that he had orders from the sieur Massiot to follow those of the sieur de La Salle; but he will not show that the sieur de La Salle expressly ordered him to go to the place where he ran aground. The letter he filed shows clearly that the sieur de La Salle ordered him to lighten his ship and unload most of the ammunition into the shallops he had sent him and then to prepare buoys in order to get as close as two and a half fathoms. On one hand he neglected to unload most of the heavy goods, even leaving in the ship some cannons and cannonballs, even though the crew pointed out to him that he had to unload them and that the sieur de La Salle had ordered it. And, on the other hand, rather than being towed, he rigged full sail and ran aground. Besides, it is established that the sieur de La Salle wrote to him to go that way only after Aigron assured him that it could be done easily. The sieur de La Salle, not being a man well versed in matters of navigation, relied on Aigron, who, with all due respect, falsely stated that the said Mengaud was at the helm when the ship was lost. The entire crew knows that it was [Louis] Crugeón, sailor, who was then at the helm and who, steering against his will, saw clearly, as did the rest of the crew, that

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Aigron was going to lose the ship.1 This means, therefore, that he must [honor] their [the plaintiffs’] petition [and pay] costs . . . . The [fourth of] August, 1685 Clément . . . for Master Rochard Notified Master Poirel, attorney, on the fourth of August 1685. [signature] Auril

August 7, 1685. The plaintiffs summon the defendants to appear before the Admiralty Court. In the case of Zacharie Mengaud, pilot, and Pierre Georget, master-gunner, plaintiffs, living in this city, pursuant to their petition referred to by the bailiff Auril’s writ of July 19 last, held in this city by Duplaise Chenadeau, clerk: Represented by Rochard the elder against Jean Massiot, [represented] by Poirel, [and] the aforementioned Aigron, [represented] by Barraud, plaintiffs summon the defendant[s] to appear before the Admiralty Court. For Rochard, [plaintiffs’] attorney. Notified Master Poirel, [Massiot’s] attorney, August 7, 1685. [signature] Auril

August 9, 1685. With the hearing date fast approaching, Aigron disputes the plaintiffs’ brief of August 4, alleging that they were irresponsible in bringing the suit. Again, Aigron seeks dismissal. In the case of Zacharie Mengaud, former pilot of the ship Aimable, and Pierre Georget, gunner of that ship, plaintiffs, in a suit filed on the nineteenth [sic for seventeenth] of last July, represented by Rochard, against Jean Massiot, Navy commissioner, [and] Claude Aigron, former captain of the Aimable, defendants, Massiot being represented by Poirel and Aigron by Barraud: Aigron, answering the plaintiffs’ brief of the fourth of the present month [August], says, with all due respect, that it is not true that the deposition he gave to the Admiralty clerk’s office of this city after his return is suspicious, as they [the plaintiffs] claim. Nor

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[is it true] that it was made afterward to protect himself from the intent of the plaintiffs’ petition, for he had knowledge of it only after being notified after the deposition was made. [It was made] according to all rules and in conformity with the ordinance, which does not specify the persons who must verify the deposition, but says only that depositions will be verified by members of the crew. This was done once he was able to find persons who had been with him, such as his surgeon and his carpenter, who were officers on board. He brought them to the clerk’s office to verify the deposition. They are the only ones he found. Their testimonies alone are sufficient since no more than two or three persons among the crew with the master are ever heard. He was unable to find more and [was unable] to give his deposition earlier because, upon the arrival of the ship [Joly] on which they were all passengers, he was unable to keep the crew [on board] until after the deposition was given, as he would have done had he been in command of the vessel. But at least it is sufficient that the deposition be in order and done in conformity with the ordinance to obtain the effect it must have in court, which is that the plaintiffs are irresponsible in making the allegations that the defendant lost his ship maliciously and against the will of his crew at the place where he ran aground. His deposition proves the contrary and [shows] the care and attention he gave to salvaging the ship with anchors and cables with which he had anchored and which were broken by the force of the sea and the wind. If this were not the case, the plaintiffs, in particular the pilot Mengaud, with the entire crew, would not have failed to file charges and to give a deposition, which he did not do. He took care not to do so because the entire crew was in agreement [with the captain]. [They] did not object to having the ship enter, following the orders of the sieur de La Salle, which he read aloud to the crew on the deck of his ship, that he should risk entering, following La Salle’s orders and the channel markers that the sieur Mengaud had put out himself. The defendant had even reinforced these with a large cask, [using] a shallop with which he had taken other casks to places indicated by the sieur de La Salle

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and by Mengaud, although these casks were not even specified in the orders. [So one cannot say], as the plaintiffs claim, that the sieur de La Salle had not given him [Aigron] the order to pass by the place where his ship was wrecked. If someone is to be blamed, it is Mengaud, since it was he who was [responsible for] steering the ship, as it was his duty. And he, with the sieur de La Salle, placed the markers, without any participation of the defendant, who never left his vessel to reconnoiter this entrance. It was reconnoitered only by the pilot Mengaud, since it was his duty to have the ship steered, and by the sieur de La Salle. [Aigron] could not avoid obeying La Salle’s orders after he sent the signal from the shore to enter. He was fully committed to following such orders, and it is therefore inappropriate for the plaintiffs to say by the aforementioned writ that the sieur de La Salle did not suggest that Aigron proceed to cross the bar. Thus, Aigron supposed that it could be done with ease, since it cannot be said that he left his ship to go reconnoiter, or that he ever went ashore. Only Mengaud did so, with the sieur de La Salle, with whom it was resolved to enter according to the orders he would send to the defendant with a signal from the shore. It is, with all due respect, untrue that [Aigron] neglected to unload all the things specified in the sieur de La Salle’s orders; he followed them explicitly by unloading his cannons, numbering eight large pieces; only four small cast-iron pieces were left for the sieur de La Salle, who did not even say to unload them.2 He said only to unload “some cannons,” without fixing a number. The defendant nevertheless unloaded all the cannons except the four small ones that were intended for the sieur de La Salle, which were of [so] little consequence that he [Aigron] does not know why the plaintiffs refer to it. This marks well the truth, that one may [rely] on towing, but this is in case the ship cannot proceed under sail. Indeed, it is certain that among persons knowledgeable of navigation, one never uses tows except in a calm or contrary wind, never when the wind is favorable to enter with all sails set. This is especially so when the bar is such that the sooner it is passed the better, as they would have done [i.e., proceeding under full sail], had

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there been enough water to cross the bar. [There would have been enough] if the signal from shore had not been sent too early, for the tide rose much more after the grounding of the ship. It could not be kept at anchor because of the turbulent wind and swift current, which drove them and wrecked the ship on the bar after all the cables and anchors of the ship had broken. This is said in the deposition that the defendant raises against [the plaintiffs] in favor of an incontestable demurrer and to have their suit dismissed with costs. [Dismissal is justified] all the more since among the entire crew, only the plaintiffs are obstinate enough to take the present legal action against him [Aigron] and upon whose solicitation he was arrested.3 He denies [their claim] entirely, since in everything he followed the orders given to him. For copy, the ninth of August 1685. Barraud, attorney.

August 11, 1685. The scheduled hearing begins, with plaintiffs Mengaud and Georget giving their opening argument. They allege specific crimes against Captain Aigron. Seeking “just settlement” of their claim, they cite applicable maritime law and request a court order granting their demands, without contest or appeal. Their case is based primarily on their claim that Aigron was guilty of the ship’s loss by failure to follow La Salle’s orders—a matter difficult to prove. Writs and instruments of law placed before you, Monsieur lieutenant and ordinary judge of the Admiralty of Guyenne at the seat and government of La Rochelle, on the eleventh day of the present month [August 1685], for attainment of just settlement in the dispute of the litigants, Zacharie Mengaud, former pilot of the ship Aimable, commanded by Claude Aigron, and Pierre Georget, master gunner of that ship, plaintiffs; [to wit], the writ of Auril, bailiff, of the nineteenth of July last, against sieur Jean Massiot, Commissioner of the Navy, and the aforementioned Aigron, defendants. By reasons herein given and others to be supplied by the justice and equity of the Court, [plaintiffs ask that] the defendants be ordered to pay the plaintiffs nine and one-half months’ wages.

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[Those of the pilot should be] at the rate of forty pounds per month and those of the gunner at the rate of twenty pounds per month. At the same time [plaintiffs seek payment], on the basis of the experts’ declaration, for the value of the clothing they lost in the wreck of the said ship; and the costs [of this suit]. [It is asked] that the final sentence carrying adjudication of the demands of Mengaud and Georget be executed by [court order?] without contest or appeal, and without prejudice of the latter. Captain Aigron is guilty of two capital crimes. The first one is having sold in Saint-Domingue [Haiti] part of the provisions carried on the ship Aimable to feed the crew who thereafter were reduced to three ounces of bread per day [per man]. To sell provisions or to let beverages spill and to lose bread intended for the conservation of human life is tantamount to homicide. It is stipulated in article seven of the second book of the maritime ordinances that a sailor or anyone else who lets beverages spill or bread be lost, etc., will be punished by death.4 In article 32, title one, of the same book, it is expressly forbidden for any master to resell provisions from his ship and to divert or hide them on pain of corporeal punishment. This is in conformity with the old ordinances of the Hanlce Theutonique [Hanseatic and Teutonic Laws], article nine, in which it is also prohibited and forbidden to resell any food supplies or provisions on pain of being punished as thieves, unless it is on the open sea [and the sale is] to other ships in hardship or danger from lack of provisions.5 When Captain Aigron resold the provisions of the ship Aimable, it was not on the open sea to provide for the urgent need of another vessel whose crew was in obvious danger of dying of starvation. He did this while en route, in Saint-Domingue, where he stopped to take on water. One must believe that he planned and carried out the loss and wreck of the aforementioned ship; otherwise he would not have resold some of the provisions, leaving barely enough for completion of the voyage. This presumption is even better established: the said maritime ordinance does not permit a shipmaster to sell any of [his provisions] to those he finds on the open sea in a pressing need of food

THE HEARING

unless he has enough left for his own voyage. Any such resale must be done only with the advice and deliberation of the officers on board. Article thirty-three of title one, second book, is precise.6 Its very words are: “It may be allowed, upon the advice and deliberation of the officers on board, to sell to ships found on the open sea in a pressing need of food, provided there will be enough left for their own voyage.” Now, Aigron did not take the advice and deliberation of the officers of his vessel when he resold the provisions. It was clear that there was not enough left for their own voyage since the crew was reduced to three ounces of bread per day. From all this one must conclude that Aigron had, from then on, a very evil intention. The second crime for which Aigron may easily be convicted is maliciously running aground and losing the ship Aimable. This crime is even more egregious than the other one. And so the laws have been armed with all harshness to prevent his being left unpunished. The [statutes] call for sailors who would refuse their help and assistance in preventing a shipwreck to be condemned to the whip. This is the disposition of article thirty-six of the Hanseatic and Teutonic ordinances and of the eleventh article of the twentieth chapter of the Guide of the Sea. Our new ordinance, drawn in Fontainebleau in August 1681, regarding the navy, discusses losses and wrecks of ships and the punishment [prescribed for] sea-pilots and harbor- or river-pilots who, by ignorance or mischief, cause them.7 Here is how it is explained. It says in article seven under the pilot’s title that a pilot who, by ignorance or carelessness, causes a ship to wreck will be subject to a fine of one hundred livres and will be deprived forever of the right to practice piloting, without prejudice to the damages and interests of the parties. If he acted from malice, he may be punished by death. Article eighteen of the title on sea-pilots, harbor- and river-pilots, and lock-keepers shows that an in-shore pilot who by ignorance causes a ship to wreck will be subjected to the whip and deprived forever of his right to pilot. Regarding [the person] who by mischief runs a ship on a sandbar, on rocks, or on a coast, he will receive the ultimate corporeal pun-

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ishment and his body will be attached to a mast planted at the wreck site.8 In the book of the Consulate on maritime affairs, composed in the Catalán language, which Mornacq mentions, regarding the ninth law of Lege Rhodia [Rhodian Law], it requires the beheading of ignorant pilots who, instead of avoiding dangers, cause them.9 To use the expression found in Oleron’s judgments, which make up the first part of the ways and customs of the sea, malicious pilots who cause a ship to wreck must suffer “a cruel martyrdom,” from which one may conclude that a shipmaster who causes his ship to be lost by his fault and mischief must receive the same punishment. Since for that matter formal dispositions exist, it is necessary to recall them.10 This speaks neither of the forty-sixth judgment of Oleron, by which all laymen consenting to a loss and a wreck are subject to the punishment prescribed for malicious pilots, nor of the ninth article of the twentieth chapter of the Guide of the Sea, under terms of which all masters committing some malpractice are punishable as thieves and buccaneers. One needs only to turn to the following article, which declares subject to the death penalty masters who cause their ship to wreck; viz., the disposition of the new maritime ordinance, second book, title one, article thirty-six, which is conceived in such terms: a master proved guilty of handing [his ship] over to the enemy or maliciously causing the wreck or loss of his ship will receive the ultimate corporeal punishment. Whereas the shipmaster cannot, in such a case, avoid an exemplary death, he can even less avoid [paying] damages in the wreck caused by fault and malice. This is found in some of the articles mentioned above and again in article seven, book three, of the ordinance of 1681, under the title on sailors’ hiring and salaries, which states as the foregoing. Sailors and other crew members taken under profit and loss may demand neither payment nor compensation when the voyage is interrupted, delayed, or prolonged by force majeure [acts of God], either before or after the ship’s departure. If the interruption, delay, or prolongation is caused by the merchants-freighters, they [the crew members] will obtain from them damages and interests, which will

THE HEARING

be adjudicated to the masters. [The masters] as well as the owners will be held [responsible] for the sailors who caused the impediments. Therefore, the defendants cannot avoid paying the plaintiffs their wages and the value of the clothes they lost in the wreck of the ship Aimable.11 If one shows that continuation of the voyage of that ship was prevented by Aigron’s having maliciously caused the loss of the ship of which he was captain, the status of the law is solidly established. It cannot be that the defendants would dare to oppose it. But the facts must also be examined in order to know whether Aigron is guilty of the loss of the ship. To determine the facts and to establish that Aigron is guilty of the loss of the ship and of running it aground with aforethought and by pure malice, one needs only to apply his [Aigron’s] own precepts as they are inserted at the beginning of his briefs. He gives as his first precept that he had a strict and unexemptable obligation to obey the sieur de La Salle blindly; that orders given by the sieur Massiot, owner of his ship, on the first day of July of last year, specify that Captain Aigron should follow La Salle’s orders explicitly during the entire crossing. One could hold this first proposition apart and say that Captain Aigron was not obliged to follow the orders of sieur de La Salle, should the orders be contrary to justice and morality: as if, for instance, he would have been exempted from following the orders of the said sieur de La Salle if he had ordered him to put the crew to death or to lose the ship, which are things forbidden by divine and human laws. This is a more natural and just distinction than the one we just made. Nevertheless, to stick to the said proposition, and considering it in all its ramifications, one still finds that the said Aigron is guilty of the loss of the ship, for the reason that he did not follow sieur de La Salle’s order. It is useless to oppose the deposition he gave upon his return to this city in an attempt to protect himself from being blamed; first, because it was made only after the fact. The new navy ordinance, under the title on leaves and reports, article four, calls for all master-captains of ships to give their depositions within twentyfour hours after arrival in port, under penalty of an unspecified fine.12 Aigron made his deposition only on the second day after

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his arrival, after the plaintiffs’ petition was filed and [a hearing] scheduled for the seventeenth of the month of July last. It is true that he had not yet been [officially] notified of it, but the ship’s surgeon, having been present when the petition was prepared by the plaintiffs’ attorney, immediately went to inform Aigron who, the very next day, submitted his deposition. He is wrong in saying that the sailors left for various places as soon as they set foot in Rochefort; that it was impossible for him to have them interrogated since he met in this city only two persons, those named in the said deposition. This fact is alleged with all due respect, for it is certain that a majority of the crew is from here and that the sailors have always stayed here upon their return.13 One of the weakest claims is that it is not in the interest of the plaintiffs but of the King’s Prosecutor of this court to recognize that Captain Aigron’s deposition was submitted after the due date—as if the plaintiffs, who can succeed in their goals only by proving that Aigron maliciously ran aground and lost the ship, had no interest in noticing the obvious nullity of a deposition by means of which he pretends to exculpate himself and cover his malfeasance. Secondly: since unverified reports are not credible for the discharge of masters, according to article eight of the aforementioned title on leaves and reports and the preceding article, the deposition must be verified by the members of the crew. The [report] by Captain Aigron, even if it had been made within the time prescribed by the ordinance, could not be credible, as it was not verified by the crew of the ship Aimable. Only two persons of his confidence, who are not even members of the crew, attest to it. This is what he might learn from the very exact explanation of naval terms that appear in alphabetical order at the end of the aforesaid ordinance of 1681. There one may see that the word crew [equipage], in the context of this ordinance, refers to naval officers, sailors, and ship-boys, who together make up the crew. Therefore, the ship’s carpenter and the surgeon even less cannot be counted as naval officers. And, supposing that a carpenter could be considered a member of the ship’s crew, the sole deposition of Pierre Dubois, former carpenter of the ship Aimable, would not be suf-

THE HEARING

ficient to verify Aigron’s deposition, Unus testis nullus testis (“One single testimony being equivalent to no testimony at all”). Third: the deposition is contrary to truth, even according to Aigron’s own admission. The deposition says that, when the said ship was wrecked, it was steered by Mengaud, the pilot. Upon his [Mengaud’s] denial that he has always made during the course of the suit, Aigron has finally been obliged to recognize in his deposition that it was one named [Louis] Crugeón who was steering the ship. What credit can be accorded a piece that gives a false deposition on the principal circumstance of the event? It is not only in this instance that Aigron’s bad faith and that of the aforementioned witnesses is evident. It is [seen] also in the fact that they make no mention in the deposition of several remarkable circumstances and conceal others. Of this it will be quite easy to convince him by the inquiry that will be made on the facts represented below, should he deny them. Fourth: Captain Aigron agrees that the ship drew nine feet of water. As stated in the report, there was no more [than nine feet] on the bar where she ran aground. This statement alone would be sufficient [reason] for concluding that Aigron is guilty of the ship’s loss, taking her to such obvious danger; and [the outcome was] all the more inevitable [because] the bar is at the entrance of a river. Good pilots know that fresh waters weigh less than those of the sea, aquarium marinarum natura gravior ideo magis invecta sustinent [“sea-water is heavier because it bears more”], dulcis aqua tennior salsa grassior est [“fresh water is lighter and salt water is heavier”] Aristotle, Problems, Section 23, no. 22.14 Finally, against the deposition the plaintiffs oppose [is] the irreproachable testimony of the Aimable’s crew members and of the crew of the ship Belle [sic for Joly], commanded by sieur de Beaujeu.15 All of them will positively declare that Aigron caused the wreck maliciously and deliberately. For infallible proof of this fact and of what was represented above, that Aigron did not follow sieur de La Salle’s orders, one upholds two peremptory and decisive facts. The first is that after Aigron had received sieur de La Salle’s written orders, sieur de La Salle sent him la Belle’s pilot

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to [take the ship past] the bar; Aigron did not want to allow it and sent back the pilot with insults. If he had not intended losing his ship, he would not have refused, against sieur de La Salle’s orders, to make use of the pilot, entrusting the conduct of his ship in obvious peril to a simple sailor with no knowledge or experience. The second fact is that even though sieur de La Salle ordered him to lighten his ship and unload the lead, iron, and other things that were of great weight, he nevertheless removed only a very small amount, so that when he ventured to take the ship over the bar of the Colbert River, it was still burdened with more than half the things mentioned hereafter, or 806 shots of twelve [pounds], 814 other shots weighing four pounds, 385 grenades, 86 casks of bullets weighing 8600 pounds, 48 bars of iron, 5 large casks of steel and iron work and a large case of iron tools, a cask of flints, anvils, 18 gun carriages, millstones, and a great number of other heavy merchandise that could easily have been unloaded.16 And what must also be noticed here is that at the time Aigron kept pretending that he wanted to lighten the Aimable, a large quantity of powder and other things was brought from the Joly, to the extent that the Aimable was being unloaded on one side and loaded on the other. The plaintiffs could also offer proof of a third fact, which is that, instead of Aigron having l’Aimable towed over the bar, following the explicit orders of sieur de La Salle, he rigged full sail.17 Since he agrees to this, the Court will take it into consideration, if it pleases, and will have no regard for the feeble excuses he uses to exculpate himself of this disobedience, which he himself confesses and recognizes: habemus confitentem reum (“we hold this thing for certain”). Besides Aigron’s disobedience of the sieur de La Salle’s orders, the plaintiffs put forth other facts that prove he is the malicious author of the loss of the ship. [They] hold that the sieur de La Salle, who is not a man who prides himself in knowing the art of navigation, made the decision to have the ship enter the Colbert River only with Aigron’s assurance that it was an easy thing to do and that he was confident that he could succeed in this perilous undertaking.

THE HEARING

They declare to him, as a second fact, that sieur de Beaujeu, as well as the pilot Mengaud, warned him of the impossibility of taking the Aimable into the river. Although he was not obligated to follow the advice of sieur de Beaujeu, one can still see the bad intention he formed and harbored in the obstinacy he demonstrated when he did not follow the advice of persons versed in maritime matters, since the new ordinance, under the title on pilots, last article, orders shipmasters and pilots, in case of contradictory advice, to abide by the advice of the leading crew members,18 and that Aigron does not depose on any written deliberation done by the principal crew members of the Aimable. Had they been of his sentiment, he would not have failed to provide [their remarks] in order to authorize or at least substantiate his hazardous and foolhardy undertaking. This is enough to show that he only followed his own whim and acted on his own mind in strict contradiction of the ordinance. In addition, the plaintiffs, on the basis of their overwhelming right, are ready to demonstrate that he did so against the entire crew’s advice, unless the court exempts them from the evidence. They base their accusations on his admissions, those being sufficient for his full conviction. Furthermore, this pleading results from the certification that Messrs. de La Salle and de Beaujeu sent to the Court, because of which Aigron was arrested and imprisoned, since they attest that he lost the said ship deliberately and refused to submit himself to the orders of sieur de La Salle.19 Such refusal to obey, notwithstanding other considerations herein expressed, would be sufficient for judging him guilty of the loss and wreck of the ship on the basis of his first principle, which he holds, as a constant and sure thing, that he was unavoidably obliged to follow completely the will and orders of sieur de La Salle. The second principle set forth in Captain Aigron’s depositions is that masters and captains of ships cease to hold command as soon as their ships have made sail to pursue their voyage, as seen in article three, title four of the second book of the naval ordinance.20 This principle is very true. The plaintiffs rebut Aigron; since the pilot decides which route to follow, Aigron should not

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have usurped this authority from the pilot Mengaud without reason. And since article eight of the same title of the ordinance forbids shipmasters to force pilots to go through dangerous places and sail against their will, he could not, without committing a crime, put a simple sailor at the ship’s command upon the just refusal by Mengaud to take the ship in a place where, in his judgment, a wreck would be unavoidable.21 The result showed that this pilot was right in not risking his ship. Had he done so, he would have incurred the aforesaid penalties prescribed by the ordinance, article seven, title four, book two.22 Aigron cannot wash away or palliate his crime with legitimate excuses or even specious or apparent pretexts. And so he has nothing left to say in his attempt to avail himself of his second principle, except for saying that Mengaud himself put out the buoys on the bar at places he and the sieur de La Salle had found the most convenient to facilitate the ship’s passage. From this fact he adduces that the sieur de La Salle and Mengaud were the sole guarantors, bearing responsibility for the path they had chosen and for accidents that might happen as a result. But it is certain, first, even though Mengaud was not in favor of taking the ship over the bar into the Colbert River, that he could not avoid obeying the command of Aigron, his captain, to go set the said buoys, especially since this Mengaud was at that moment considered an ordinary seaman. This was because he had refused to go the wrong way, as he was ordered to do by Aigron, who during the entire voyage had rolled in his head and fomented criminal projects. He [Mengaud] was, on the twenty-third of September [1684], dismissed and deprived of the conduct of the ship and he was suspended by Aigron from all command.23 This is why he was not considered to be the pilot anymore. Secondly, even if he had been serving as pilot [at the time of the wreck], having declared several times that it was impossible to take the ship over the bar unless she was lightened by three feet would not have been enough to keep him from being blamed for refusing to risk it in such obvious danger.24 Thirdly, the said Aigron did not even follow the route he [Mengaud] had chosen. After the crew

THE HEARING

represented to him [Aigron] that he was not taking the right road, he mocked the advice and ran the ship aground. Of all the foregoing statements, the plaintiffs provide the proof. On this basis one cannot deny Aigron’s malice and malfeasance, which are now fully demonstrated, by his admissions during the trial, by Messrs. de La Salle and de Beaujeu’s testimony, and by his confession to the intendant, which was sent to the Court,25 as well as by aforementioned testimony for developing and perfecting the case against Aigron. But, since the plaintiffs do not wish to defame him, and since the defense of their civil interest is the sole motive for their action, they are content with this civil action, with the end of [obtaining] payment of their wages and the value of their lost clothing. [The suit] is against Aigron as well as against sieur Massiot, who, being the owner of [Aigron’s] ship, is the guarantor of his action according to the said ordinance and the disposition of the first law, first paragraph, digestis de exercitoria actione, meaning that they maintain their pleading on the basis of the evidence therein, and maintain that they must obtain payment of the costs. Notice served on Monsieur Denis Barraud, attorney, on the seventeenth of September, 1685.

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8 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11

THE SUMMATION

ollowing the August 11 hearing, the Admiralty Court judge ordered both the two defendants and the two plaintiffs to present their dossiers and exhibits. The defendants were to respond in writing to the plaintiffs’ arguments. Captain Aigron, responding on August 20, was the first to heed the order. The plaintiffs provided their dossier on September 19. Sieur Massiot later presented his dossier, followed by an amended dossier and deposition, both probably given on the same day, October 10. August 20, 1685. Captain Aigron gives written argument responding to the plaintiffs’ case heard on August 11. He seeks to shift blame for the wreck to Mengaud, citing the same Maritime Ordinance of 1681 quoted previously by the plaintiffs. This document constitutes a formal petition for dismissal of the suit with costs charged to the plaintiffs. It raises by innuendo the possibility of barratry (the incitement of litigation by another person) and charges the plaintiffs with trying to suborn those who previously had deposed for the captain. Aigron claims his arrest on order of the Royal Court was merely an attempt to get information from him concerning the shipwreck, that he was not arrested “as a criminal.” This document is Aigron’s most effective defense; it surely figured prominently in turning back the plaintiffs’ claims.

F

Page from the court record, introducing Captain Aigron’s response to the plaintiffs’ argument presented in the hearing of August 11, 1685.

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Writs and instruments of law which before you, Monsieur le lieutenant and ordinary judge of the Admiralty of Guyenne at the center of La Rochelle, [are delivered] in fulfillment of the order to respond in writing to the case [heard] on the [eleventh] of August of the present year 1685: Claude Aigron, living in this city, former captain of the ship Aimable, defendant against Zacharie Mengaud, pilot of that ship, and Pierre Georget, the ship’s gunner. Defendant’s aim is that (by the means resulting from the hearing, and by the following reasons and other just ones supplied by our customarily prudent justice), if it pleases you, sir, the final sentence to be passed will dismiss the charges the plaintiffs have brought against this defendant, with costs. From this he concludes that one might easily surmise some secret person has persuaded the plaintiffs to instigate these proceedings against the defendant, because it often happens with schemes expected to be easily realized; it often happens that obstacles prevent them from being carried out successfully.1 It is also common to attribute such obstacles to an innocent cause, which one tries to make the victim. One harbors the ambitious passion to conserve his reputation among biased minds. Good intentions cannot satisfy the damage caused by the loss of possessions in these circumstances, [which may] not be fully repaired. The proposition advanced earlier appears ever more true: that among twenty-five crewmen who had rights similar to those of the plaintiffs, only two have undertaken to bring [Captain Aigron] to justice for the payment of their salary. In addition, there was an effort to suborn the same persons who have already been heard for the defense; an attempt was made to force them to make a declaration, in the presence of a notary, that was contrary to the one they had already made for the preservation of the truth. Even though one supposes that there was a reason other than the particular interest of the plaintiffs behind their action, it is not very hard to show that their prête-nom [“straw man” or “figurehead”] is without foundation, if only one reflects upon the maritime ordinances and upon the rules of navigation. The plaintiffs were among the crew of the ship Aimable, which was lost and wrecked on the twentieth of last February on the bar

T H E S U M M AT I O N

of the Colbert River in the Gulf of Mexico while sailing under the command of the sieur de La Salle during the voyage undertaken by him to the newly discovered land in Southern America, and as they do not ignore that when a ship is wrecked, officers [and] sailors of the crew cannot pretend to any payments or salaries as stated by article eight, title four, book three, of the maritime ordinance they [the plaintiffs] have taken as pretext,2 or to put it better, they have maliciously asserted in support of their pleadings that the defendant, by malice or deliberately ignoring the opinion of the crew and the advice of the sieur de Beaujeu, commander of one of the warships of His Majesty called le Joly, which was of their company, ran aground and wrecked the aforementioned ship on the bar. And they tried to reinforce their assertion with some particular circumstance alleged at the hearing. But it is easy for Aigron to justify himself in that matter and to show that the loss of this ship cannot be imputed to him but indeed to others and to the bad piloting by Mengaud, one of the plaintiffs, who had her [attempt to] enter the river. To this effect, one must hold as first and sure principle that, as there must be some subordination in all affairs as well as among persons by whom such affairs take effect, so it must be in both genres, that the person who in his functions and occupations acts only under the power and the command of someone else must punctiliously follow orders given him and cannot undertake anything of his own authority, especially in perilous enterprises, as in the case of war or navigation. With navigation and the military art, there is equal danger to be feared and, since regarding the latter, orders given by chiefs and superiors are precisely executed by subordinates; they [the orders] must be no less obeyed during navigation, and if things turn out badly, even though orders are faithfully executed, such misfortune cannot be attributed to those who followed and executed them diligently and faithfully. This is why, in case of trial, if the said defendant proves that he executed his prescribed orders, which he was bound to follow during the voyage in question, one may not accuse him of, or make him responsible for, the loss of l’Aimable.

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For a second principle, it is well known that with navigation, masters and captains of ships do not hold command after ships have weighed anchor and set sail to pursue their course. It is only the pilot who holds command during the entire voyage until they arrive at the destination, loading and unloading, according to what is found in article three, title four, book two, of the same ordinance.3 Their [masters’ and captains’] power and authority apply only to particular cases of singular need during their voyage that are external and foreign to the art of piloting, as mentioned in the first title of the same second book. The master and captain may not change these against the pilots’ will on pain of death.4 These principles being laid, it is easy to apply the first one correctly to the defendant’s conduct. One cannot disagree that for the undertaking of the voyage, it was the sieur de La Salle who held general command and whose orders had to be followed, at least regarding the defendant. This is so true because of the written orders given him by the sieur Jean Massiot the younger, merchant in this city [owner of his ship], signed by him on the first of July of last year, 1684, provided at the hearing. It is expressly stated that the said defendant shall follow entirely the sieur de La Salle’s orders during the entire crossing. This is what he did from the moment he became the bearer of the sieur Massiot’s orders, and remarkably during the particular circumstances which preceded, accompanied, and followed the wreck of the ship in the Colbert River. First, he is justified by the deposition given by the defendant upon his return to this city, before you, sir, on the eighteenth of July past, [saying] that he punctiliously followed the sieur de La Salle’s orders and brought his entire and best care and diligence to prevent the shipwreck, and his simplicity is such that one cannot have the least doubt. Contrary to what is found in the deposition, it is an authentic piece for Aigron’s defense. So much more is verified by the deposition of Gabriel Robellin, surgeon, and Pierre Dubois, carpenter, who were among the crew of the said ship.5 The plaintiffs are not able to contest that: first, because they based themselves on no act or attestation given in writing proved to be contrary to the facts contained therein, regarding essential


circumstances of the wreck; second, because this deposition made in accordance with the same marine ordinance constitutes a public and judicial act that can neither be altered nor destroyed by any contrary fact or by the fact that plaintiffs tried to assert that the defendant lost the ship maliciously, which fact is inadmissible because depositions given by masters are [made] in the name of the entire crew and because in matters of navigation, master and crew are supposed to be one and the same corps in which, indeed, power-related subordination and command are preserved. Plaintiffs still tried to fight this deposition’s validity by saying in their expedient replies that it is posterior by one day of the pleadings, that it was done after the said Aigron’s return to this city and after the prescribed deadline by the aforesaid ordinance, and that it was verified by the surgeon and the carpenter only, even though the crew was made up of twenty-three men, but as the said defendant alleged at trial, these instruments are of no value because the deposition fully supports the pleadings that were served on the nineteenth of last July, when it was actually given as early as the eighteenth of that month.6 And if the defendant did not do it within twenty-four hours after his arrival in that city, it is because, as soon as those who returned with him set foot in Rochefort, some of them went this way and others that way. He could find in this city only the two aforementioned persons to verify his deposition. And suppose he gave it after the deadline; it would not be in the plaintiffs’ interest but rather in that of the King’s Prosecutor of this court, in whose presence it was given without complaint of his negligence. Finally, if only two members of the crew were heard for verification, it is because of the reason mentioned; also, taking the declaration of only two members of the crew is the usual way of verifying reports made by shipmasters and captains. This is true, for depositions kept in your office, Monsieur, are done this way. This is why whatever was said regarding the said deposition’s formality does not require any more attention. Second, even though [the deposition] is sufficient to justify the defendant’s acquittal, the truth of its content is also proved by other evidence and by particular circumstances.

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The defendant recalls that, after His Majesty’s ship [Joly] had arrived with the others at the entrance of the Colbert River, she cast anchor in five fathoms of water; and at the same time the sieur de La Salle was taken ashore to reconnoiter the place; and, after returning aboard a few hours later, he said that they had arrived at the place of his desired landing. The sieur de Beaujeu, upon the sieur de La Salle’s order next day, gathered all the pilots to sound the entrance of the Colbert River, and, after sounding it, they found only nine feet of water at low tide where [the bottom] was the most even. The plaintiffs agree to this in their petition and their pleadings and recognize that it is true that Mengaud was sent by the defendant to sound the bar to find out whether there was enough water to enter. And, after sounding it in the presence of sieur de La Salle and two pilots from le Joly, he found only nine feet of water on the bar. Furthermore, the deposition also mentions that, because of the difficult entrance, the sieur de La Salle, with Mengaud, had two wooden poles planted to mark the channel where the ship was to pass. As the two poles were not sufficient to mark it, the defendant sent Mengaud to place three buoys with grapnels to mark the channel more clearly. He had an empty cask attached to the farthest buoy so that it could be easily seen from the ship. The plaintiffs did not formally disagree with that circumstance. And so the truth is that it was the said Mengaud who put out the buoys where the sieur de La Salle and he himself found them to be most appropriate for facilitating the passage of the ship over the bar. Thence, two things result: one, that the defendant, never having sailed in these locations, made sure not to interfere and to obey completely the sieur de La Salle’s orders. A bit of common sense is enough to suggest that he took all precautions one can take in a perilous situation, after sending his pilot to sound the bar, and that he did not abandon his ship at all during the entire time of danger, knowing well that he could not do it without incurring penalties indicated in the aforementioned ordinance. The second [point is] that the sieur de La Salle and Mengaud, being among


those who planted the channel markers and put in the buoys where the ship had to pass, were the sole guarantors, responsible for the passage they traced and for accidents that could happen there. It is the work and the science of pilots to reconnoiter dangerous places and to plant markers for avoiding reefs; they consequently may not be excused when a wreck follows and, chiefly, when they were eyewitnesses themselves, as was Mengaud, of the wreck of the Aimable by his mistake since, after sounding the bar and knowing how deep it was, he had to put channel markers and buoys where there was enough water to pass without danger. [The defendant] is justified also by the deposition in that, after all these passages were marked, the ship had to be lightened before entering the river. The sieur de La Salle, who was ashore, sent on the nineteenth of last February two shallops from sieur de Beaujeu’s [ship], in which the defendant unloaded the heaviest and the most cumbersome items on his vessel and even poured out all his water. This unloading was another execution of sieur de La Salle. It is mentioned in the missive written and signed by him on the same day, which was provided at the hearing. The plaintiffs say that he neglected to unload the heaviest goods, even the cannons and the cannonballs. This allegation is contrary to the truth, except that he had eight cannons unloaded,7 as it appears in the report; and by “such heavy goods” one can mean only the wines and brandies that were in the bottom of the hold. The defendant did not have them unloaded indeed, and he made sure he did not do it since they were provisions that the sieur de la Salle, in his letter, had ordered him not to touch; yet, after being pushed toward the coast with some little rigging, they were nevertheless salvaged, and he did not want him to unload from the defendant’s ship anything more than what was taken out on the nineteenth of February, as mentioned in the certification by Lefort, an officer of the ship Joly, signed on the nineteenth of last March. In the same letter of sieur de La Salle, it appears that the defendant Aigron was ordered to get underway the following day, the twentieth of February, to enter the Colbert River, and that for a signal, he [La Salle] was to make smoke on shore; as soon as

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the defendant saw it, he was to proceed under tow, in case he could not use the sails. This also is in conformity with the aforementioned testimony. Now these orders were again punctiliously executed. The proof is found in the said deposition where it is said that on the day of February 20, as soon as the defendant noticed the smoke on the shore, at two o’clock in the afternoon, he weighed anchor and followed the first marker to go to the second one; while close to it, his ship ran aground and touched bottom because there was not enough water. The plaintiffs alleged that, instead of towing his ship as he was obliged to by sieur de La Salle’s orders, he unfurled all sails. But they do not notice that by virtue of the letter he was free to proceed under full sail, since it is said that at the signal, he would get towed if he could not hoist sails. As the defendant noticed in his writ of the ninth of the present month, it is established that a ship entering a river gets towed only when the weather is calm or the wind is contrary; if the wind is favorable, it is a rule followed by all good navigators to cast off, even with all sails, when one must cross a bar, so as to pass more quickly and with less danger.8 And so it is shameful of Mengaud, who has the rank of pilot, to resort to such [false] reasoning. At least the plaintiffs’ allegation that the defendant had to weigh anchor and hoist sail against the consent of the crew and the advice of the sieur de Beaujeu, who shouted that he was going to lose her on the bar, is not reasonable justification for their claim, because on one hand Aigron did not depend at all for his conduct on the sieur de Beaujeu, whose orders he did not have to follow, but only those of the sieur de La Salle; on the other hand, he was pressed by the signal on shore, and he could neither delay nor stop himself from casting off as he was free to do by the said letter, which he did with the consent of the entire ship’s crew, whatever the plaintiffs might say, since, as explained above, they base themselves on no written testimony to the contrary, and that it must be presumed that a shipmaster never casts off his ship and makes sail in a dangerous location without the crew’s consent. Besides, it is established that, before casting off, he read the sieur de La Salle’s orders to the entire crew, who did not oppose them.


One must conclude that the defendant, in the circumstances of the unfortunate accident with which l’Aimable met, has exactly and faithfully executed the sieur de La Salle’s orders and that he has shown all required prudence and vigilance. If things did not succeed as expected, it is not his fault. One cannot agree that he willfully resorted to negligence and malice in a place where he had never sailed before and where he was aware of the obvious peril and of the risk for his life, and that he deliberately wanted to lose a ship, knowing well that in the case of her wreck, he would lose all his clothes and hope of being paid his wages and salary.9 Regarding the application of the second principle submitted in the foregoing, one finds it in the said Mengaud’s behavior, because it must be observed that the ship was following her course at the time of her wreck and had not arrived at her destination, which is why he was in charge of the steering. It is well known that every bad [incident] that happens to ships while on course and during their crossings—in particular where sounding must arouse and inspire the pilots’ skills—is supposed to happen by their error, ignorance, or lack of experience, which makes punishable the ones who have imperitia culpa ad [“guilt by inexperience”], as the law says.10 Now, ignorance is supreme when, after finding some rocks or sandbars that their ship must pass for the completion of the voyage, the [pilots] cannot mark with precision such places to avoid danger. Because it is established that such places are not chosen by masters and captains but are completely left to the pilots’ discretion; and when a ship then wrecks and is lost, for which one attempts to blame the master, it must be shown that the master resorted to violence, and by menace and abuse he forced the pilot to steer the ship in a manner opposed to the science of his art. Otherwise, the full responsibility and the penalty incurred for such accidents fall entirely on the pilot. In the present case, it is Mengaud, one of the plaintiffs, who sounded the bar of the Colbert River in the presence of the sieur de La Salle. He admitted to this at the hearing in his petition, containing his pleadings. It is he who, with the sieur de La Salle, planted the poles on the bar to be used as markers in places found by both of them to be

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suitable. It is he who put out the buoys. This appears in the foregoing deposition, and he does not deny it. It is he who piloted and steered her after casting off. It is true that it was not he who was at the helm and that it was [Louis] Crugeón. But, far from being excused by this, he is all the more culpable for having entrusted the helm to an ignorant man in a place he knew to be a pitfall. It was precisely there that he had to hold the helm himself, to steer the ship in places that no one knew but him. Be that as it may, one must believe that Crugeón allowed himself to steer only upon his [Mengaud’s] order, admission and consent, and that it is the same as if he himself had been at the helm, qui per alium facit . . . sententur [“who has someone else do something is sentenced”]. All the particular circumstances noted in the foregoing are authentic testimonies that the said Mengaud had charge of the entire direction of the ship’s course, and, consequently, if he lost and wrecked her, it cannot be but by his fault or by the sieur de La Salle’s, and in no way by the fault of the defendant, who at all times followed orders and accordingly let his pilot work.11 To say, as the plaintiffs have done again, that the proof of Aigron’s having lost the ship by malice is [based on the fact] that, as soon as he returned to this city, he was arrested by order of the [Royal] Court and [the claim] that, in a word, he could not prove that the sieur de La Salle had given him the order to pass where the ship was wrecked. [This] is a weak argument because [the defendant] was not arrested as a criminal, and there is no charge or information against him. [The purpose of his arrest] was to learn from him how such loss had happened.12 And it appears that the sieur de La Salle intended for him to pass where the accident took place, since he had traced the course himself and put out channel markers, and that he had ordered the defendant in his letter to get underway without loss of time after the signal he would send him. Which he did. If the signal had not been sent so soon and if the pilot had not had the ship trimmed all at once at the buoy, as was done, perhaps the accident would not have happened the way it has been represented. It is certain that the defendant Aigron, after following punctiliously the sieur de La Salle’s orders, and the


ship’s having been at that moment under the direction of the pilot Mengaud, cannot be held culpable for this wreck. For that reason the plaintiffs are unable to claim any payments or salaries; consequently, he [Aigron] can be excused of their pleadings, with costs [of the suit], especially since it is not he who hired the plaintiffs but the sieur Massiot, as they recognized in their petition. This means that they have no case against Aigron. He therefore persists in his [petition for dismissal], with costs, as he concluded at the beginning of the present document. Signed: Pain. The foregoing notice served to Master Didier Poirel, attorney, on the twentieth day of August, 1685. . . . [Signature] Auril

September 19, 1685. The plaintiffs submit to the Admiralty clerk the dossier of their case against Captain Aigron and Jean Massiot. Today Zacharie Mengaud, pilot, and Pierre Georget, gunner, [represented] by Rochard the elder, provided to the Clerk’s Office their pouch and exhibits for the case in which they are plaintiffs against the sieur Jean Massiot, ordinary commissioner of the Navy, and Claude Aigron, ship captain, defendants [have been and must be notified on the first Hilou?],13 sergeant of the King; required to do so, we give power [of attorney]. Done at the Clerk’s Office of the Admiralty of La Rochelle, the nineteenth of September, 1685. Signed: Tharay, clerk; Master Poirel, attorney, notified on September 24, 1685, by Lamason, clerk. [Signature] Auril, bailiff.

October 1685. Jean Massiot, through his attorney, Didier Poirel, seeking dismissal of the plaintiffs’ action, presents his dossier of the case to the Admiralty judge. Few of the designations given papers in Massiot’s dossier are identifiable with the documents translated here, suggesting that papers have been lost or scattered. Inventory and exhibit of documents, which brings before you, Monsieur, lieutenant and judge of the Admiralty of Guyenne at this city and government of La Rochelle Jean Massiot, commis-

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sioner of the Navy living in this city, defendant against Zacharie Mengaud, former pilot of the ship Aimable, commanded by Claude Aigron, and Pierre Georget, gunner aboard the said ship, plaintiffs, [Massiot] and Aigron [being defendants], in accordance and conformity with the hearing [held on] the eleventh day of the month of August of the present year 1685 toward rendering between the two parties; that it may be ruled, if you please, Monsieur, that, as much on the basis of the exhibits and briefs produced at the hearing as on the basis of the law and of the equity that you will supply so much better by your ordinary and usual prudence, that the plaintiffs’ petition will be rejected and by the sentence that will be handed down, notwithstanding any of their opposition or appeal. To achieve this, the sieur Massiot offers the exhibits that follow. First and without approving it, for the benefit it can bring him only, and not otherwise, copy of a request presented to you, sir, and to the plaintiffs, by which they request permission to summon the said defendant [Massiot] to pay their wages for the voyage in question, and on the back of which is the summons that was made to him, with the subpoena by Auril, bailiff, the ninth of July 1685, and marked A. Also, the sieur Massiot brings forth, to the same and aforesaid ends, a brief produced by him in response to the accusations made against him by the said plaintiffs, on the back of which is the notification given Master Michel Rochard, their attorney, the twenty-seventh of July of this year 1685, signed Petit, bailiff, and marked B. Also, the sieur Massiot produces, to the same and aforesaid ends and without approval, for the benefit it can bring him only, and not otherwise, copy of a deposition given before you, sir, by Captain Aigron, on the back of which are three others, produced by Pierre Dubois and others; at the bottom is a brief that was produced on behalf of Aigron; and then there is the permission to copy dated the twenty-seventh day of the month of July of the present year 1685, signed by Barraud, his attorney, and marked by him C. Also, the said sieur Massiot produces, to the same and aforesaid ends and without approval, for the benefit it can bring him only,


and not otherwise, copy of the orders given by him to Aigron, following which there are also two other [orders] given [Aigron] by the sieur de La Salle, on the back of which there is a certificate produced in the case by Aigron, together with the notification given master Didier Poirel, attorney of said sieur Massiot, on the third day of the month of August of the present year of 1685, signed Auril, bailiff, and marked by him D. Also, the said sieur Massiot produces, to the same and aforesaid ends and without approval, for the benefit it can bring him only, and not otherwise, copy of a brief produced for the case by the said plaintiffs, on the back of which is the permission to copy, and then there is the notification [given on the _____] of the month of September of this year 1685, signed Legereau, bailiff, and marked J. Also, the said sieur Massiot produces, to the same and aforesaid ends, and without approval, for the benefit it can bring him only, and not otherwise, the act showing that the plaintiffs have produced at the office of the seat their dossier and exhibits for the case in which they are plaintiffs, at the bottom of which is the notification that was sent to master Didier Poirel, his attorney, the twenty-fourth of September, 1685, signed Auril, and marked K. Also, the sieur Massiot puts forth, to the same and aforesaid ends, these writs and instruments of law produced by him in response to the case of the plaintiffs and of Aigron, which it will please you, sir, to read, signed Bouchereau, his lawyer.14 After this there is the notification sent to Messrs. Michel Rochard and Denis Barraud, their attorneys, the tenth of October, 1685, signed Auril, bailiff, and marked L. Also, the said sieur Massiot produces, to the same and aforesaid ends, the petition he made to you by which he requires action based on what he places in your hands, his pouch and exhibits of the case, in which he is the defendant, at the bottom of which petition is your ordinance; after this, there is the notification made to Messrs. Michel Rochard and Denis Barraud, attorneys for the plaintiffs and for Aigron. On the [blank] day of October of the present year of 1685, signed [blank], bailiff, and marked M.

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Also, the sieur Massiot produces, to the same and aforesaid ends, the present inventory for the pleadings of these pieces that master Didier Poirel, his attorney, has made and signed, upon his request and marked N. Signed: Poirel15

October 10, 1685. Attorney Bouchereau makes his case for Jean Massiot to be nonsuited and the plaintiffs to be required to pay court costs, on the grounds that the dispute is between the plaintiffs and Captain Aigron. The verbiage here suggests Bouchereau’s impression that Aigron has won his case. Writs and instruments of law which [bring] before you, Monsieur, lieutenant and judge of the Admiralty of Guyenne at the seat of this city and government of La Rochelle, Jean Massiot the younger, Navy commissioner, living in this city of La Rochelle, defendant against Zacharie Mengaud, former pilot of the ship named Aimable, and Pierre Georget, gunner aboard that ship, plaintiffs. [This is done] for the fulfillment of the injunction to depose and [respond to evidence] given on the eleventh of August of the present year 1685, so that by reasons alleged in the defense’s briefs provided by the said sieur Massiot, by the reasons to follow, and others to be supplied, the plaintiffs be declared inadmissible in their pleadings and that the sieur Massiot be absolved and [excused from paying court] costs. In order for the plaintiffs to have the action brought against the sieur Massiot declared inadmissible, he has only to use the exposition in their request that contains their pleadings, by which as well as by their writs and by those which were made for Claude Aigron, former master and captain of the said ship, in order to defend himself from the same pleadings of the plaintiffs who had him summoned, as with the sieur Massiot, for the payment of their wages for nine and a half months at the rate of forty pounds per month for the pilot Mengaud and of twenty pounds per month for Georget, the gunner. Obviously, all the disputes of the trial arise between the plaintiffs and Aigron only. They complain about his conduct and accuse him of two capital crimes for which they allege him guilty. First, they claimed that Aigron, [who


was] engaged by the sieur Massiot as master and captain of the ship Aimable for a deep-sea voyage under the conduct of the sieur de La Salle in Southern America, while laying over at Saint-Domingue for some time, sold part of the provisions intended for feeding the ship’s crew, [and thereafter] reduced the crew’s rations to three ounces of bread per day [per man]. The second crime of which the plaintiffs accuse Aigron is that he maliciously and deliberately wrecked and lost the ship in the Colbert River. And by making him guilty of these two crimes, they maintain that they are justified in asking him for the payment of their wages since the ship did not wreck fortuitously. Thus accused, Claude Aigron claims that he is guilty of neither; that he has not sold any of his provisions and that he is not responsible for the wreck or loss of the ship because he completely followed the orders of the sieur de La Salle and all that was ordered by him. This he intends to prove by the documents he produced at the trial, to counter the pleadings of the plaintiffs, after they failed to get any action against him for the payment of their wages;16 it is not with him that they treated and, moreover, wages are due neither to the pilot nor the gunner nor to the seamen or any member of the crew [because] the ship was wrecked during its course and has not returned to safe harbor, as stipulated by article eight of the ordinance of 1681.17 For all these reasons, Aigron has held the plaintiffs’ pleadings inadmissible; [their petition has been denied, and they must pay the costs of the suit.] It follows from these pleadings brought against the plaintiffs and Aigron that the sieur Massiot was misinformed regarding the payment of wages to the said plaintiffs. For even though it is he who treated with them and promised to pay them the wages for the voyage, he cannot be held liable, since the plaintiffs must agree and remain in agreement that payment of wages cannot be [granted] when the ship was wrecked; when she was lost at sea during the voyage, as in the case of l’Aimable, which wrecked on the bar of the Colbert River in Southern America. As all the parties admitted at the hearing, it follows that the plaintiffs’ pleadings drawn against the sieur Massiot for payment of their wages are not to be admitted. The distinction made by the plaintiffs in the wreck of l’Aimable

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shows all the more that it is with justice that the sieur Massiot seeks to be nonsuited. They rightly agree that the wreck’s having taken place fortuitously among the perils and fortunes of the sea releases the ship’s owner from the payment of wages to the crew. But they pretend that the wreck in question, having occurred by the fault and malice of the said Aigron, her master and captain, requires payment of their wages. It is to prove this particular point that the plaintiffs refer to the authority of laws and naval ordinances to convict Aigron of the two crimes of which they accuse him, and to have him ordered to pay their wages. It is this [circumstance] that must bring the acquittal of the sieur Massiot, since it [the petition] is based on particular and personal facts; of these the sieur Massiot is not the guarantor, since in criminal matters, noxa caput sequitur [“the fault follows the person”]. It is not the case that the ship owner is bound by the fact that he engaged the master unless it is proved that the master has maliciously lost the ship upon the order of the owner: something the plaintiffs do not dare say against the sieur Massiot, who, according to the disposition of the first law, first [paragraph?] of the Exercitoria actione cited in the plaintiffs’ writs, can be answerable for the conduct and regular operation of the ship by the master only as a merchant is answerable for and bound by the actions of his clerk. Because the plaintiffs recognized this, they took action against Aigron and sought recourse from him for the payment of their wages. They would not have done so had they not judged him responsible for his particular and personal acts by which they seek to make him debtor of their wages. In such cases one usually moves against the ship’s owner, who must pay the wages as agreed upon with the master and crew. Therefore, the sieur Massiot is not obliged to enter the discussion and examination of all circumstances of proof of the bad conduct that the plaintiffs allege against Aigron, who intends to defend himself on the basis of the orders given him by the sieur Massiot and the sieur de La Salle, under whose conduct the voyage was outfitted. The sieur Massiot is obliged only to let it be known that the orders he gave Aigron are just. He ordered him to follow entirely the orders of the sieur de La Salle during his entire crossing, because he was


the conductor of the voyage and the bearer of His Majesty’s orders, which Aigron consequently had to obey. The sieur Massiot commanded him above all things to be moderate, and to have plenty of provisions on board, and to rule all things well. Such are the just orders given in writing by the sieur Massiot, which Aigron provided during the proceedings, with the orders given him from time to time by the sieur de La Salle. He claims to have executed those orders and to have followed them punctiliously. On that claim he based his defense against the action of the plaintiffs, who, for their part, pretend to demonstrate the opposite on the basis of certification of the sieur de La Salle and the sieur de Beaujeu, commanding His Majesty’s ship le Joly.18 From all this the sieur Massiot concludes in favor of his dismissal: if Aigron had not followed the sieur de La Salle’s orders; if it is true that he unnecessarily sold part of his provisions and reduced the crew to three ounces of bread per day, and that he maliciously lost and ruined the ship; if he had committed the crime of which the plaintiffs accuse him, not only would he be obliged to pay the claimed wages, but the sieur Massiot would have the right to prosecute him extraordinarily. But until the sieur Massiot sees the proof of these allegations by the plaintiffs, he cannot prosecute Aigron; he contents himself with claiming that, since they demand that Aigron be required to pay their wages on the basis of the particular and personal facts they accuse him of and of which the sieur Massiot cannot be the guarantor, they are not entitled to bring this action against the sieur Massiot. They consequently must be nonsuited and be ordered to pay costs. This is what he [Massiot] pleads for, without prejudice toward his other rights. [Signature] Bouchereau, attorney. Notified Messrs. Michel Rochard and Denis Barraud, attorneys, the tenth of October 1685, dictated to his clerk. [Signature] Auril, bailiff.

Here ends the available record. Massiot has written ambiguously of the outcome of Aigron’s defense, but from all indications it was successful. The plaintiffs failed in their bid for lost salary and clothing. Still, it was by no means the end of the matter for the captain.

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PART THREE

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THE SEARCH FOR AIMABLE

n October 24, 1979, I went aboard the research vessel Anomaly at the invitation of State Marine Archeologist Barto Arnold to witness a brief episode in the continuing search for La Salle’s storeship, Aimable. This was the Texas Antiquities Committee’s sub-bottom profiler survey of Pass Cavallo, the natural entrance to Matagorda Bay. The objective was to define the depth of a magnetic anomaly believed to represent Aimable’s remains, which lay—and still lie—far beneath the alluvium and mud somewhere within the pass. Having recently returned from an extensive research trip to Spain pursuing a different objective, I had brought from Madrid information that eventually proved useful in the search for La Salle’s small frigate Belle: a microfilm copy of a diary kept by the Spanish pilot Juan Enríquez Barroto, which chronicles events of a voyage that sailed from Veracruz in December 1686 to seek La Salle’s settlement.1 When this Spanish expedition, captained by Antonio de Rivas and Pedro de Iriarte, visited Matagorda Bay—April 3, 1687—Aimable had long since broken up and disappeared beneath the waves. A few days previously, at Cedar Bayou, the Spaniards had found in two abandoned Indian canoes ship fittings that indicated a large vessel had been lost in the area. From the recovered items, Enríquez Barroto formed an

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exaggerated estimate of the lost ship’s size as up to three hundred tons. Actually, it was the 180-ton Aimable. The present search by the Texas Antiquities Committee was guided in part by maps drawn in 1685 by La Salle’s engineer, Jean-Baptiste Minet, to which were added determinations by geomorphologist Robert A. Morton indicating changes in the shoreline over the last three hundred years.2 The October 1979 resurvey of Pass Cavallo represented a final effort to cap the season’s work by locating the two sites of greatest interest: those of the La Salle vessels, Belle and Aimable. The Juneto-August magnetometer survey and excavation project of Matagorda Bay proper had identified five significant shipwreck sites and two others that appeared to be early steamships. All were associated with the nineteenth-century port town of Indianola (1846–1886), on the west side of the bay, which served throughout its brief existence as a landing place for immigrants bound for the Texas interior. Indianola was abandoned after being virtually destroyed by the 1886 hurricane, the second major storm to strike the port town in eleven years.3 Although the June-to-August survey had succeeded in making important finds, the failure to locate either of the La Salle shipwreck sites was disappointing, hence the decision to undertake two more brief remote-sensing surveys. A map by the Mexican savant Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora, based in part on information provided by Enríquez Barroto, indicates the general area of Belle’s disaster, but it is by its very nature imprecise and subject to misinterpretation. The section of the map depicting Matagorda Bay is quite small, and the symbol representing the lost ship covers a disproportionate space. Lacking any indication of distance in reference to either Matagorda Peninsula or Pass Cavallo, it provided little help.4 Having been out of the country during the planning and execution of this effort, I knew nothing of it until Arnold called to invite me on the Pass Cavallo reconnaissance. I had yet to inform him of Enríquez Barroto’s diary, which would prove to be one of several tools employed in the ultimately successful effort to find the little frigate Belle. This survey of the pass was being undertaken with the hope that a sub-bottom profiler might define the depth of overburden covering the magnetic anomaly thought possibly to be Aimable and perhaps delin-

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The crew of the Texas Historical Commission research vessel Anomaly, which was used in the search for Aimable, here investigates a shipwreck in Matagorda Bay. Photo courtesy of Texas Historical Commission.

eate it. On that sun-drenched October afternoon, the research vessel Anomaly, captained by L. G. Wingfield, moved at four to six knots along the path Arnold had designated in the approach to the pass.5 The specially designed thirty-two-foot craft, fitted with a nonmagnetic hull to avoid influencing the sensors, dragged the magnetometer along the bottom, mapping changes in seabed magnetism. This instrument—“a remote-detection sensor similar to a highly sensitive metaldetector”—transmitted its signals to a receiver on deck, which recorded them.6 My role was largely that of an observer. Seven survey tracks were run to ensure thorough coverage of the anomaly area. The magnetometer penetrated up to fifty feet (fifteen meters) without meeting a solid object, indicating that the anomaly— presumably Aimable, with her heavy burden of iron, lead, and weaponry—lay even deeper. If La Salle’s accounting is credited, she went down with the four twelve-pounder cannons intended for the colony and some ten thousand pounds of iron and lead, plus an undisclosed number of chests of arms and tools, in addition to ten cannons of the ship’s own armament—enough weight to make the vessel sink deep into the

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soft bottom over a long period. Additionally, silting of the pass had been exacerbated by the dredging of a new channel into the bay.7 The Antiquities Committee staff already had investigated the cost of hiring a commercial dredge to remove the thick covering of silt and clay and found it prohibitive. It was hoped that eventually some company or agency dredging in the area could be persuaded to donate the use of its equipment for a short time to test the anomaly. None has been forthcoming after almost thirty years. The final search for Belle was another story. After the survey of Pass Cavallo was completed that October evening, Arnold and I were rehashing the day’s work in a Port O’Connor motel room. The conversation, naturally, turned to La Salle’s lost ships and why they had been so elusive. It was then that I drew from my briefcase a summary I had made of the Enríquez Barroto diary and handed it to Arnold. I think it’s safe to say that his face brightened as he read the entry of April 6, 1686. His reaction is best expressed in the “Conclusions” section of his report of the 1979 survey, where he refers to the “important new documentary evidence” encompassed in my recent find and quotes it at length.8 At this point, however, lack of state funding precluded any major effort to find La Salle’s ships. Arnold nurtured his hope of finding Belle for the next sixteen years before an opportunity finally arose. During that time the Antiquities Committee was absorbed by the Texas Historical Commission; Arnold joined the THC Archeology Division, directed by James E. Bruseth. In 1995, two foundations and a government source provided funding for a new survey; a THC survey crew under Arnold’s direction set out to find the ship Belle.9 Arnold had long ago determined the general area for the search. The several factors that now contributed to his success included his own depth of experience. The seventeenth-century map by Sigüenza y Góngora showed the wrecked vessel (Navío quebrado, the designation given it by Enríquez Barroto) on the inshore side of Matagorda Peninsula. Enríquez Barroto now provided a more precise description. The entry for April 4, 1687, gave the distance from the point to the wrecked vessel as three leagues (ten miles).10 Morton’s study of the geomorphology, identifying shoreline changes since the late seventeenth century,


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A section of Belle’s hull as it emerged from its grave of more than three hundred years. Photo by Donald E. Chipman.

was still useful. Furthermore, technology had increased markedly since 1979. These new developments included the global positioning system, capable of marking locations by satellite with an accuracy previously unknown, as well as improvements in detection instruments. The survey launched in June 1995 began with a preliminary magnetometer reconnaissance by helicopter, but it failed to identify the site of either Aimable or Belle. The survey from the research vessel Anomaly, after covering other parts of the bay, identified several sites thought possibly to be Belle, but the most promising, in twelve-foot water, was chosen first. With Anomaly situated over the possible wreck site, divers plunged into the murky water to explore the bottom. Visibility was zero, so they had to feel their way along the bottom with one hand while the other held a guide rope. They surfaced a short time later to report that a wreck lay almost directly beneath the research vessel, buried in the muddy bottom. A prop-wash deflector, consisting of a large pipe placed over one of Anomaly’s propellers to direct the flow downward, was put into operation to move sediment from a portion of the targeted area. Almost immediately, the divers began to find artifacts, including musket balls. Then master diver Chuck Meide, who led the dive

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team, grasped a loop of metal he could identify only as a “dolphin,” the lifting handle of a cannon. Then he found the muzzle and, at the breech end, the cascabel. When Meide surfaced to report his find, a cheer went up from the crew. La Belle had been found.11 As has often been said, “Nothing succeeds like success.” In May or June of 1996, almost a year after Belle had been found, Glenn Adams, a bulldozer operator on the Keeran Ranch working along Garcitas Creek in Victoria County, found the “cache of cannons” that had been brought from France by Aimable. Transported by the small frigate Belle as far as the supply depot at Indian Point and carried through Lavaca Bay and up Garcitas Creek by native canoe, they had been installed in defensive position around the French settlement.12 Ironically, these cannons offered no defense because all the cannonballs of the right size had either sunk with Aimable or been hauled away in Joly’s hold. Found and buried by a Spanish expedition under General Alonso de León in 1689, the guns were found and buried again by Gregorio de Salinas Varona on the Llanos-Cardenas expedition of 1693; they evidently were being saved for use in a Spanish post, should one be placed there. By the time the Spanish presidio called Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía del Espíritu Santo rose at the site in 1721–1722, that information had been forgotten.13 With work at the Belle site completed, the Texas Historical Commission excavated the settlement site. Proved once and for all was the location of La Salle’s ragged wilderness outpost, mistakenly glorified with the name Fort-Saint-Louis since an early eighteenth-century writer misread his source.14 Still, one piece of the puzzle was missing: the storeship Aimable. Hopes of finding the vessel that lay somewhere in or near Pass Cavallo had taken a blow with the 1979 evidence that she lay beneath a burden of shell sand and silt exceeding fifty feet. The 1995 THC reconnaissance did nothing to arouse optimism, yet the matter was not to rest there. One more effort would be made, the most intense and enduring of them all. Authorized by THC Antiquities Permit 1852, the new project was funded by Clive Cussler, chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to pre-


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Archaeologist Kathleen Gilmore and a volunteer assistant screen artifacts mined from La Salle’s settlement site on Garcitas Creek. Photo by Robert S. Weddle.

serving maritime and naval history. The search, seeking to build on the survey conducted by Barto Arnold in 1979, was carried out from December 1997 to August 1999 with both aerial and surface magnetometer surveys. During that time an area in the Pass Cavallo vicinity measuring 4.81 nautical miles north to south and 2.12 nautical miles east to west was surveyed in the search for Aimable’s remains.15 The effort was complicated by both the large number of shipwrecks and the iron trash within and around the pass, as well as the still baffling geologic changes of the previous three hundred years. Most of the changes, according to the report, had occurred in the preceding thirty-five years, resulting largely from the opening of the Matagorda Ship Channel by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1965. The channel cut through Matagorda Peninsula to provide shipping access to Port Lavaca and the Intracoastal Waterway; stone jetties were built to help maintain it, changing the dynamics of the flow into and out of Matagorda Bay. Pass Cavallo was changed dramatically. Conclusions based on historic maps, consequently, were rendered less certain.16

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In the course of the survey, sixty-six targets were identified, eighteen of which were determined to be shipwrecks or probable wrecks: ten from the twentieth century, five from the nineteenth, and two from the eighteenth. No seventeenth-century wrecks were identified. There was, however, one target with a magnetic signature indicative of a shipwreck, but it could not be identified because of an overburden of more than twenty-six feet. Its character was consistent with a shipwreck containing three to five tons of ferrous material. Surely remembered at this juncture were the ten thousand pounds of iron intended for the building of La Salle’s settlement that Aimable carried to her grave. A wave of optimism swept the survey crew in late February 1998 when a flintlock pistol and a musket, both heavily encrusted, were recovered from the site, revealed only as “about a mile off Matagorda Island.” X-rays revealed that the guns had French-style lock mechanisms of a type developed in the mid-seventeenth century.17 On Texas Independence Day, March 2, 1998, NUMA officials, joined by Bruseth, announced that Aimable had been found. “Second La Salle Ship Discovered” read a headline in Riding Line, newsletter of the Texas State Historical Association, over a story slightly more equivocal. THC, Bruseth said, had begun looking toward excavation of the site “more than a year” later, at a cost expected to be at least twice the 5.5 million dollars spent on the Belle salvage project. But first there had to be confirmation.18 THC provided the research vessel Anomaly; Steve Hoyt and Bill Pierson from the Archaeology Division joined the team. With emergency grant funds provided by Governor George Bush, the “THC archaeologists conducted intensive investigations using high-resolution sonar, global positioning system technology, additional diving, artifact recovery, and historical research.” With the assistance of the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University, “the wreck was confirmed . . . as a mid- to-late eighteenth century ship, perhaps of Spanish origin.”19 The Conservation Laboratory, however, ultimately concluded otherwise. After conservation and analysis of the more than two hundred artifacts, a vessel from the Texas revolutionary period, Hannah Elizabeth, was chosen as the most likely candidate. Hannah Elizabeth, a


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Brought from France on the ill-fated Aimable and transported to the French settlement in native canoes, these eight cannons were unearthed from an anaerobicclay bank overlooking Garcitas Creek in 1996. Photo courtesy of Texas Historical Commission.

New Orleans merchant vessel, was bound for Matagorda Bay in 1835 with supplies for Texas insurgents when she ran aground while being pursued by a Mexican naval vessel. She was fired upon and captured, then recaptured by Texans as she lay aground. The artifacts recovered consisted mostly of firearms and munitions.20 It was an interesting find, but La Salle’s ship Aimable was no closer to being found than at the end of 1979. The eight cannons recovered from the settlement site on Garcitas Creek may turn out to be the only part of the ship or her cargo ever to be preserved in Texas. It has been estimated that as many as fifty thousand shipwrecks lie within the territorial waters of the United States. Five to ten percent of these wrecks (2,500 to 5,000) are believed to be of historical sig-

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nificance, many of them within state boundaries.21 Although numerous Spanish wrecks of colonial times lie within the Gulf of Mexico, French shipwrecks of great antiquity in the Gulf are rare. Belle, the only French colonial vessel found in the Gulf to date, may also be the oldest French wreck yet discovered in the Western Hemisphere. Ships lost in shallow water face danger from both nature and human predators—artifact collectors and professional treasure hunters can hasten a wreck’s decline by disrupting the stable environment. The royal French naval vessel Belle, which eluded professional archaeologists for years, was not safe from predation, as evidenced by a missing cannon that left its imprint on the bay floor, testimony that an artifact hunter had arrived before the professionals. Aimable, on the other hand, remains secure, safe from predators beneath her thick overburden. Paul F. Johnston, curator of maritime history at the National Museum of American History, describes the gradual transition of ships that sink in water too deep for immediate salvage: “from being intact on the bottom to gradually crumbling while fasteners, hull sections or wooden components deteriorate and finally fail, becoming flatter as the contents compress and settle into one another and the surrounding matrix. As a wreck becomes covered by sand, coral, mud or silt overburden which seals it off from the harmful effects of oxygen, it will eventually reach a state of stabilization, where it can remain for hundreds, or even thousands of years.”22 Modern technology has brought the salvage of such wrecks within the realm of possibility. Even so, it has been estimated that the cost of recovering Aimable could run to five times the millions of dollars in public and private funds spent on the excavation and preservation of Belle. The question inevitably arises as to whether such remains would be worth the cost of removing the fifty-foot overburden. The answer lies in consideration of the value placed on human knowledge. The historical record indicates that relatively little of what Aimable carried was removed from the wrecked vessel before she broke up under the sea’s relentless pounding. Her cargo consisted of the supplies, tools, and weaponry necessary for establishing a European colony in the seventeenth-century wilderness. What would be the value of the knowledge she might still have to reveal?


The historical data from an untold number of ships lost during colonial times have been lost for want of timely action by governments and educational institutions to forestall salvage by private interests and random pilfering. Although Aimable appears not to be in imminent danger of plunder by treasure hunters, the secrets she holds will not last forever.

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NOTES

CHAPTER ONE

1. Bernard Allaire to the author, undated memo supplying information from the Archives Départementales de la Charente Maritime, La Rochelle (ADCM). 2. World Wide Web; archival search by Jérôme Malhache (e-mail to David Dodson, September 21, 2005). 3. Deposition, July 18, 1685, Part II, no. 2; depositions of Dubois and Robellin, ibid. 4. Henri Joutel, “Voyage de M. de La Salle dans l’Amérique septentrionale en l’année 1685, pour y faire un establissement dans la partie qu’il en avoit auparavant descouverte,” in Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud de l’Amérique septentrionale (1614–1754), ed. Pierre Margry, 3, cited hereinafter as Joutel, “Voyage”; Jean-Baptiste Minet, “Journal de nostre voiage au Golphe de Mexique,” trans. Ann Linda Bell, in La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf: Three Primary Documents, ed. Robert S. Weddle; La Salle et al., “Procès-verbal du sieur de La Salle sur le naufrage de la flûte l’Aimable à l’entrée du fleuve Colbert,” March 1, 1685, in Margry, Découvertes, and his letter to the Marquis de Seignelay, both presented herein in translation; and translated documents herein pertaining to Aigron’s trial from Amirauté de La Rochelle—Serie B / 6015, ADCM. 5. “Contrat d’affrètement du navire l’Aimable,” La Rochelle, June 5, 1684, ADCM, notarial register of Rivière & Soullard, 3 E 1806(2), ff. 110v–111. See Robert S. Weddle, The Wreck of the Belle, the Ruin

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of La Salle, 121–122. Although one might conclude that La Salle bore all the leasing expense himself, there is reason to believe that a debt Massiot owed the Crown for the lease of the royal vessel l’Emerillon was applied either to the lease of l’Aimable or in the form of other contributions to La Salle’s voyage. See King to Arnoul, June 17, 1684, Archives Nationales, Paris (AN), Marine B2: 50, f. 230; and ibid., Seignelay to Dumont, April 9–10, 1684, 51, f. 210v. 6. “Contrat d’affrètement du navire l’Aimable.” 7. La Salle’s small fleet did not actually sail until July 24; it waited “a long time” for a favorable wind. See La Salle’s letter to his mother in Margry, Découvertes, 2:470. This letter has to do also with La Salle’s initial plan to take the expedition to Canada and to journey thence down the Mississippi. Weddle, Wreck of the Belle, 128. 8. With Île de Ré to the north, this large island across the bay from La Rochelle forms the entrance to the harbor at the mouth of the Rivière Charente. 9. “Rolle des oficiers, mariners et matelots qui composent l’equipage du vaisseau l’Aimable pour le voyage a la coste de Canada,” Amirauté de La Rochelle (ALR), B. 5682, f. 375. 10. “Etat du chargement de l’Aimable,” ibid., f. 374. 11. “Mémoire de l’équipage de St. François,” June 8, 1684. Concerning the Saint-François’s capture on the north Haitian shore by Spanish privateers see Weddle, Wreck of the Belle, 139, 287–288n14. 12. Weddle, Wreck of the Belle, 122–123; Robert S. Weddle, “The Talon Interrogations: A Rare Perspective,” in La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf, ed. Robert S. Weddle, 209–224; “Memorial on the questions asked of the two Canadians who were soldiers in Feugerolle’s Company,” trans. Ann Linda Bell, ibid., 225–258; and Pierre Meunier, “Declaración,” Mexico City, August 19, 1690, Archivo General de Indias, Seville (AGI), Mexico 617 (transcript in Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, CAH). 13. “Engagé pour la Louisiane pour Cavelier de La Salle,” ADCM, notarial register of Rivière & Soullard, 3 E 1806(2). 14. Jean-Baptiste Minet, “Extrait du journal du nostre voyage fait dans le golfe de Mexique,” in Margry, Découvertes, 2:591 (a supplement to rather than an excerpt of Minet’s complete journal); Marc de Villiers

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du Terrage, L’Expédition de Cavelier de la Salle dans le Golfe du Mexique (1684–1687), 159. 15. Joutel, “Voyage,” 96; court record of August 11, 1685, Part II, no. 3. 16. Villiers, L’Expédition, 161, 164. 17. La Salle to Beaujeu, Petit-Goâve, November 23, 1684, in Margry, Découvertes, 2:521–522; Joutel, “Voyage,” 105–106. 18. Minet, “Journal,” 90. 19. Ibid., 92; Joutel, “Voyage,” 114. 20. Robert S. Weddle, The French Thorn: Rival Explorers in the Spanish Sea, 1682–1762, 19. 21. La Salle to Beaujeu, Petit-Goâve, November 23, 1684, in Margry, Découvertes, 2:522. 22. Minet, “Journal,” 102. C H A P T E R T WO

1. Minet, “Journal,” 102. 2. Joutel, “Voyage,” 147. 3. Minet, “Extrait,” 597–598. 4. “Procès verbal de l’entrée du lac où est descendu M. de La Salle,” February 17, 1685, in Margry, Découvertes, 2:539. 5. Joutel, “Voyage,” 148, 175. 6. Minet, “Journal,” 108. 7. Ibid., 108–109. La Salle, on this and other occasions, manifested a gross feeling of insecurity in matters of the sea. He evidently compensated by striking out at his subordinates. 8. Joutel, “Voyage,” 149–154; “Procès verbal,” March 1, 1685, 2:555– 558, translation in Chapter 5, herein. 9. Minet, “Journal,” 109. 10. Joutel, “Voyage,” 154–156. 11. “Procès verbal,” March 1, 1685, 530–532. None of the ten men signing this report with La Salle had nautical knowledge. They included the two Duhaut brothers, tradesmen who had lent La Salle money at Saint-Domingue, one of whom was to be La Salle’s murderer. The others, excepting Gabriel Barbier, are believed to have been gentleman volunteers. Among that group was the Marquis de Sablonnière,

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who later suffered severely from a venereal disease contracted in PetitGoâve. 12. Concerning La Salle’s shipwrecks and the causes, see Robert S. Weddle, “The Wreck of Ships and Dreams: A New Look at the Explorer La Salle,” in The French in Texas: History, Migration, Culture, ed. François Lagarde, 1–19. 13. La Salle to Marquis de Seignelay, March 4, 1685, translated in Chapter 5, herein. 14. Minet, “Journal,” 109–112. 15. Ibid., 109, 110; La Salle, “Procès verbal,” March 1, 1685. CHAPTER THREE

1. Minet, “Journal,” 109, 110. 2. See ibid., 122; Minet to Seignelay, July 6, 1685, in Margry, Découvertes, 2:602–604. 3. Joutel, “Voyage,” 177. See also Minet map, p. 18. 4. Margry, Découvertes, 2:577–581. 5. Attorneys’ names compiled from court documents, Amirauté de La Rochelle, Serie B / 6015, ADCM. 6. King to Pierre Arnoul, July 22, 1685, AN, Marine B2: Ordres du Roi concernant la Marine, f. 232v; Minet, “Journal,” 122. CHAPTER FOUR

1. “Procès verbal,” March 1, 1685, translated in Chapter 5, herein; Aigron, Deposition of August 9, 1685, Chapter 7. 2. Weddle, Wreck of the Belle, 238; Seignelay to Arnoul, July 22, 1685, in Margry, Découvertes, 2:604–605. 3. Ibid. 4. AN 21331, f. 370; Marine B2-52, f. 249; Minet, “Journal,” 122. 5. ADCM, 3-E-1837, November 16, 1685. CHAPTER FIVE

1. Ministere des Colonies. Collection Moreau St. Mary. Description et Historique Louisiane, 1680–1755, f. 2. Printed in Margry, Découvertes, 2:555–558, translation courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (BHC), here lightly edited.

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2. Balises: beacons, sea-marks, or buoys. The context here suggests buoys rather than beacons. 3. The two words “the said,” repeated with each mention of Aigron’s name throughout the original document and the BHC translation, are omitted hereafter. 4. La Salle, as he tells it here and in his letter to Seignelay, which follows, was unequivocal in ordering Aigron to proceed under tow after reaching a depth of two and a half fathoms, not leaving to Aigron’s discretion whether a tow was needed. 5. La Salle’s account of the cannons remaining on Aimable is at variance with Aigron’s claim that they were small and insignificant. 6. Afterward the trigger man in La Salle’s murder. 7. Service Hydrographique de la Marine, 13 Rue de l’Université. Printed in Margry, Découvertes, 2:559–563, translation courtesy of BHC. 8. These two sentences, which were combined in the BHC translation, are rearranged here for clarity. 9. On the sixth of January the ships passed Galveston Bay, which La Salle decided was the mouth of the river he had explored in 1682: the Mississippi. 10. The latitude given lies between Matagorda Bay, in 26 degrees 38 minutes north, and Galveston Bay in 29 degrees 34 minutes. The discussion indicates Galveston Bay. 11. This statement bespeaks La Salle’s reference frame, drawn in Canada, where the rivers and lakes are frozen over in winter. 12. A rather confused explanation. No report of the pilots’ soundings of Galveston Bay has been located. 13. Here La Salle attempts to reconcile his observations of the actual mouth of the Mississippi with Galveston Bay. 14. See the foregoing official report, note 4. La Salle now brings out his “reasons to distrust” Aigron, found nowhere in his previous correspondence and reports—possibly an indication that he has invented this explanation to fit the circumstance. 15. La Salle’s compass directions are confused. The ship would have been sailing more toward the northeast, rather than north. See Minet map, p. 18. In the following paragraphs, meaningless words have been deleted, as indicated by ellipses.

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16. Reference is to the Indians to be brought from Illinois country that La Salle expected to join him for the conquest of the Mexican province of Nueva Vizcaya, and those he expected to rise in rebellion against the Spaniards and join his force. This is an aspect of his scheme—supported by King Louis XIV—that many present-day scholars have had difficulty acknowledging or understanding. CHAPTER SIX

1. Each of the trial documents in the archive at La Rochelle carried a “Text” number, but the numbers had nothing to do with chronology. Whether they were assigned for court use or for some esoteric order in the archives is not apparent. They therefore have no relevance here and have been omitted. 2. The name was given various spellings in the original documents. Whereas the spellings in the court record are reflected in the translation, the accompanying text uses the most likely form of the name: Mengaud. 3. Note variations in date given for the return. 4. Aigron’s confusion as to who actually was steering the ship when it ran aground is hard to explain. His claim that La Salle had instructed him to have Mengaud, as pilot, take the ship into the bay and that he himself had so ordered has not been verified. The fact that Mengaud had turned the helm over to Crugeón did not, in the defense’s contention, relieve him of responsibility for the steering. 5. The eight cannons mentioned here are those later taken to La Salle’s settlement on Garcitas Creek (present-day Victoria County), found and buried by the Spanish general Alonso de León in 1689 and unearthed by the Texas Historical Commission in 1996. Aigron neglects to mention the items lost with the ship other than the wine and brandy. 6. Minet (“Journal,” 123) gives July 6 as the date Joly arrived at Rochefort. Whereas Aigron claims the arrival at Rochefort was on July 8, the plaintiffs filed their petition at La Rochelle on July 9, which they say was the day after their arrival there. Captain Beaujeu, in his undated report to Seignelay (Margry, Découvertes, 2:583), gives July 5 as the date of his arrival at “the entrance to the river of Rochefort,”

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i.e., the Charente. He makes no mention of taking Joly and her passengers up the bay to La Rochelle. 7. The four priests on Aimable were the three Franciscans mentioned previously and La Salle’s brother, Abbé Jean Cavelier, a Sulpician. Dubois’s mention of the priests and the daily Mass appears to reflect his desire to emphasize the captain’s loyalty, as well as his own; both Dubois and Aigron were Protestants. On October 18, 1685, Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau, revoking the Edict of Nantes, which had established legal toleration of France’s Protestants, the Huguenots. Popularly known as the Revocation, the new edict was recorded in the French Parliament on October 22, 1685. 8. Evidently an oblique character reference for Aigron the Protestant, all the more meaningful because the deponent himself was Catholic. 9. Aigron seems to have acted with foresight in taking this deposition the previous March; he evidently had anticipated the accusations that would be made against him. 10. The misfortune Aigron refers to here is the capture of some of La Salle’s men by Indians. Here the defense again claims that Mengaud was steering the vessel, as La Salle had ordered, when she went aground. Aigron later concedes that Mengaud was not steering, but was still at fault for turning the helm over to a common sailor. 11. The crew’s deposition on the circumstances of the ship loss, Aigron claims, has not cast the blame on him; the plaintiffs are the only ones who have done so. Therefore, Aigron deduces, the matter must be decided on the basis of the Sea Law. He evidently refers to l’Ordonnance de la Marine promulgated on August 3, 1681, book 3, title 4, articles 3, 4, and 7–9, which specify the wages to be awarded sailors in event of voyage disruption under various circumstances. Only if the voyage is disrupted by the fault of the proprietor is the crew entitled to compensation. Aigron claims, first, that the ship loss was not his fault. The orders he has from Massiot and La Salle, he points out, make him entirely subject to La Salle’s orders. Was not La Salle then the proprietor of the voyage? See René-Josué Valin, Nouveau commentaire sur l’Ordonnance de la Marine du mois d’Août, 1681, book 3, title 4, articles 3–4, 1:686–689; ibid., articles 7–8, 700–704.

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12. This hitherto unknown letter, if genuine, focuses on two inconsistencies between what La Salle’s order to Aigron actually said and what La Salle later claimed: first, that he intended to be on board when the ship got underway but was prevented from doing so by the surprise visit of some Indians (Chapter 5, part A), and second, that Aigron was ordered unequivocally to enter under tow (Chapter 5, parts A and B). It should be noted also that La Salle does not specify that Mengaud steer, as Aigron has claimed. CHAPTER SEVEN

1. The claim that Crugeón was “steering against his will” seems damaging to the plaintiffs’ case. It appears to have been Mengaud who, after refusing to steer himself, put Crugeón at the helm. 2. There is a discrepancy between this statement and La Salle’s. Whereas Aigron claims the four cannons were too small to be of importance, La Salle claims they were twelve-pounders. La Salle also lists cannonballs, grenades, iron, lead, and tools as having been among the heavier items left on the ship; Aigron fails to mention them in his testimony. 3. It was because of information given by La Salle in the official report and in his letter to Seignelay that Aigron was arrested, not because of solicitation of the plaintiffs. 4. This statement goes somewhat beyond the Ordinance of 1681, book 2, title 7, article 6 (Valin, Nouveau commentaire, 1:552), which “prohibits all mariniers and sailors from taking bread or other provisions and from pouring out any beverage without permission of the master or dispenser appointed for distribution of the provisions” on pain of loss of one month’s benefits and “further severe punishment as warranted.” The prohibition is not limited to sailors, but extends to all others, even to the master himself. The death penalty can be applied in case of theft by the “guardian” or watchman “because of the unfaithfulness of the trustee.” 5. Ibid., book 2, title 1, article 32, 1:457; Ordinances of the Hanseatic League, article 9 (1591), in J. M. Pardessus, Collection de lois maritimes anterieures au xviii siècle, 2:510–511. 6. Valin, Nouveau commentaire, book 2, title 1, articles 32–33, 1:457–458.

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7. Ordinances of the Hanseatic League, article 36, in Pardessus, Lois maritimes, 2:518; ibid., “Guidon de la mer,” chapter 21, article 11, 427–431. 8. Ordonnance de la Marine, book 2, title 4, articles 7, 8, in Valin, Nouveau commentaire, 1:492–493. The opening paragraph of article 7 is quoted almost exactly. Article 18 of the Ordonnance of 1681 has not been found. 9. Enciclopedia jurídica Española (ed. Seix, 6:569–686) describes the Consulado del Mar (Libro Consolat de Mer). See also Pardessus, Lois maritimes, 2:250–251. On the Rhodian Sea-Law, see Carlo Targa, Ponderazioni sopra le contrattazioni marittime, appendix; Walter Ashburner, The Rhodian Sea-Law; and Robert D. Benedict, “The Historical Position of the Rhodian Law.” 10. “Ancient Laws of Oleron,” appendix to John Godolphin, A View of the Admiral Jurisdiction, article 23, 188: “If a Pilot undertaking the Conduct of a Vessel, to bring her to St. Mallo, or any other Port, fail of his duty therein, so as the Vessel miscarry by reason of his ignorance in what he undertook, and the Merchants sustain damage thereby, he is obliged to make full satisfaction for the same, if he hath wherewithall; and if he be not able to make satisfaction, he ought to lose his head. And in that case the Master or any of the Mariners, or the Merchants, cut off his head, they are not bound to answer for it; but yet before they do this, they ought to know whether he hath wherewith to make satisfaction.” 11. These provisions are printed in Valin, Nouveau commentaire, book 1, title 1, article 36, 1:461–464, and book 3, title 4, article 7, 1:700. 12. Ibid., book 1, title 10, article 4, 1:299–300: “All masters and captains of ships must have made their report to the lieutenant of the admiralty twenty four hours after their arrival in port, on penalty of a fine to be determined.” 13. Mengaud himself was from Oléron, Georget from Saint-Gilles. Five of the other six officers and petty officers were from La Rochelle, as were three of the six seamen and one twelve–year-old ship’s boy. See Chapter 1, herein. 14. “The drinkable, sweet water . . . is light and is all of it drawn up: the salt water is heavy and remains behind, but not in its natural place.” Aris-

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totle, “On Generation and Corruption: Meteorology,” in The Works of Aristotle, vol. 1, book 2, no. 2, p. 461. 15. Oddly, the names of Captain Beaujeu and his ship are confused; Beaujeu was captain of Joly, not Belle. 16. This tremendous weight may account for Aimable’s sinking far into Pass Cavallo’s mud bottom, which caused later frustration during efforts to find her. Compare La Salle’s list (La Salle’s letter to Seignelay, Chapter 5, part B). See also Chapter 9. 17. Again, this is contrary to Aigron’s claim that La Salle allowed him the choice to be towed in if he was unable to proceed under sail. See note 10, above. 18. Book 2, title 4, article 8, 1:493 of the Ordonnance, quoted correctly in Valin, Nouveau commentaire. 19. “Procès verbal,” March 1, 1685, and La Salle to Seignelay (Chapter 5). Beaujeu (to Seignelay, in Margry, Découvertes, 2:577–584) does not deal with the Aimable wreck beyond reporting that the ship was lost February 20 while attempting to enter a branch of the Rivière Colbert and that he himself worked until the twenty-eighth to save the goods on board. 20. Book 2, title 4, article 3, Valin, Nouveau commentaire, 1:489–490. Whereas the pilot directs the ship’s course (his sole duty), the master or captain has the right to examine his operation and to control them—”in a word, to keep an eye on his conduct.” 21. Book 2, title 4, article 8, ibid., 493, as stated. At issue here, however, is when Aigron deprived Mengaud of the pilot’s duties. This having occurred in mid-ocean, the captain might have been hesitant to ask Mengaud to resume piloting at the bay entrance, even had he been willing. 22. Book 2, title 4, article 7, ibid., 492–493: “The pilot who by ignorance or negligence [loses] a vessel will be condemned to a fine of one hundred pounds and forbidden to practice piloting forever.” 23. As stated in the articles of the 1681 Ordonnance, dealing with the pilot’s duties (see note 20 above), “the pilot shall determine the route and shall be furnished charts, track charts [routiers], arbalêtes [sic], astrolabes, and all the books and instruments necessary to his art.” The word arbalète is defined as “crossbow”—not exactly an item one

N O T E S T O PA G E S 7 6 -- 8 2

would expect to find among the tools of a pilot’s trade. Here a reason is given for the dispute that arose between Mengaud and Aigron during the outbound voyage by which Mengaud was deprived of his position as pilot: Aigron, it appears, insisted that Mengaud take a different course from the one he believed to be the right one. Whether this was the dispute on Aimable that Joutel was sent to arbitrate is not clear. According to Mengaud, his suspension remained in effect at the time of the wreck. 24. This sentence, confusing in its original form, has been arranged to clarify the obvious meaning according to the context. 25. The confession that Aigron is said to have made to the intendant (Arnoul) or anyone else is not known at present. CHAPTER EIGHT

1. Aigron gives no indication of whom he thinks might have influenced Mengaud and Georget to bring the suit, but it seems likely he meant La Salle, who had not been hesitant to vent his feelings concerning the ship loss. 2. The Maritime Ordinance of 1681, book 3, title 4, article 8, states, “In case of capture, breakdown, or shipwreck, with the complete loss of the vessel and the merchandise, the sailors may not lay claim to any payment.” Any such payment would depend on saving the ship and its cargo. In Valin, Nouveau commentaire, 1:701. 3. Ibid., book 2, title 4, article 3, 489, establishes the role of the pilot as directing the course, and nothing more; at all times the master or captain has the right to examine the pilot’s operations, control them, and to watch over his navigation. 4. “Since the conduct and conservation of the ship, as well as overseeing the cargo, are the responsibilities of the master or captain, naturally it is he who chooses the pilot, the boatswain, the sailors, and the companions of his voyage.” Ibid., book 2, title 1, articles 4–5, 384–385. See also book 2, title 1, articles 17, 19, 22, 25, and 27 (439–444, 447–449, 451, and 453). 5. Robellin and Dubois are not listed with the crew of twenty-two drawn up at La Rochelle at the beginning of the voyage. Mengaud has maintained that the surgeon and the carpenter were not to be

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counted as members of the crew. In claiming a crew of twenty-five, Aigron counts them, as well as himself. 6. Dates given previously were the eighth and ninth of July. 7. The eight cannons that were taken to the settlement on Garcitas Creek. 8. La Salle, nevertheless, claims Aigron ignored his order to proceed under tow (Chapter 5, part A). 9. La Salle also claimed that “nothing was found in the said ship belonging to Aigron, who had saved even his jams” (see Chapter 5, part A). 10. This precise verbiage is not found in the documents at hand; however, book 2, title 4, article 7, of the Ordonnance de la Marine specifies the punishment a pilot may receive: “The pilot who by ignorance or negligence causes a ship to perish shall be required to pay one hundred livres as indemnity and be deprived forever of the practice of piloting, without prejudice to the parties’ damages and interests. If he has acted from malice, he shall be punished by death” (Valin, Nouveau commentaire, 1:492). 11. While Mengaud claims he had been relieved of pilot duties in September 1684, in mid-ocean, Aigron’s attorney proceeds as though Mengaud had still been the pilot when the ship wrecked. Both sides seem reluctant to bring out the dispute that may lie at the roots of the disaster. Regardless of Mengaud’s status at the time, the fact is he had the piloting skills needed at this crucial juncture and, knowing the danger, refused to use them. As to Aigron’s claim that the wreck was caused by following the buoys that Mengaud placed, the official report (Chapter 5, part A), Minet’s map showing the site of the wreck p.18, and Joutel (“Voyage,” 151) all indicate that the ship veered off course and grounded outside the marked channel. 12. Even though Aigron was held in the Tower of Saint-Nicolas from July 28 till early November, his claim is not as inconceivable as it may at first appear. Since the Middle Ages, suspected offenders in France were often imprisoned during the investigation of their cases. The king instructed the intendant, Arnoul, to interrogate Captain Aigron and take depositions from the crew members of both Aimable and Joly so as to determine the basis for La Salle’s accusation that the wreck of Aimable came about through the fault of the captain.

N O T E S T O PA G E S 8 9 -- 1 0 2

Had this proved to be the case, there seems to be little doubt that the king would not have ordered Aigron’s release—he would have been subjected to an even more severe penalty. Trial of the civil suit brought against him by Mengaud and Georget ran its course. 13. No definition can be found for the word Hilou. The bracketed portion, including question mark, follows the French transcription. 14. Didier Poirel had been named previously as Massiot’s lawyer. 15. This item is not found among the extant documents of the case. 16. The implication here is that Mengaud and Georget have already lost their case against Aigron. 17. Massiot here refers to book 3, title 4, article 8 of the Ordinance of 1681 (Valin, Nouveau Commentaire, 1:701). See note 2, this chapter. 18. No evidence of Beaujeu’s having sided with La Salle in his accusations has been introduced into the proceedings, the plaintiffs’ claim notwithstanding. CHAPTER NINE

1. “The Enríquez Barroto Diary,” Biblioteca del Real Palacio, Madrid, manuscript 2267; translated by Robert S. Weddle in La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf, ed. Robert S. Weddle, 149–295. 2. James E. Bruseth and Toni S. Turner, From a Watery Grave: The Discovery and Excavation of La Salle’s Ship La Belle, 35. 3. Indianola’s rich history is told in Brownson Malsch, Old Indianola: The Mother of Western Texas. The story of the town’s fatal blow, the hurricane of August 1886, is told on pages 262–266. 4. Reproduced in Robert S. Weddle, Wilderness Manhunt: The Spanish Search for La Salle, plate 8. 5. Figs. 37–40, in J. Barto Arnold III, A Matagorda Bay Magnetometer Survey & Site Test Excavation Project, 68–71, show the probable location of the Aimable wreck and the area covered by an airborne magnetometer survey. 6. Bruseth and Turner, From a Watery Grave, 37. 7. Arnold, Magnetometer Survey, 111; official reports of the wrecking of l’Aimable, Chapter 5, part A, herein. 8. Arnold, Magnetometer Survey, 112–113. 9. Bruseth and Turner, From a Watery Grave, 39.

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10. Sigüenza map; Enríquez Barroto diary, in Weddle, La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf, 171. 11. Bruseth and Turner, From a Watery Grave, 38–40. 12. Curtis Tunnell, “A Cache of Cannons,” SWHQ 102, no. 1 (July 1998): 37. 13. Francisco de Llanos, “Diario y derrota del Viaje que se hecho y Ejecutado a la Bahía de San Bernardo,” and Manuel de Cárdenas, “Diario,” both in AGI, Mexico 617 (transcripts at CAH). The Marqués de Aguayo formally established the Presidio de Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía at this site in April of 1722 and left it in the charge of Domingo Ramón, whom he had sent to occupy the site the previous year. See Robert S. Weddle, San Juan Bautista: Gateway to Spanish Texas, 164–165; and Peter P. Forrestal, trans., Peña’s Diary of the Aguayo Expedition. 14. For the morphology of this error, see Robert S. Weddle, The Wreck of the Belle, 196–197. 15. “Search for L’Aimable,” National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) report to the Texas Historical Commission, May 2000, 1. I am indebted to James E. Bruseth for providing a copy of this report, which is labeled “Not for public dissemination.” 16. Ibid., 4–5. 17. Ibid., 16. 18. Riding Line, Spring 1998, 6. 19. “Search for L’Aimable,” 16–17; quotes from Riding Line, Fall 1998, 7–8. 20. Amy Borgens, “A Nineteenth Century Shipwreck at Pass Cavallo, Texas,” Conservation Research Laboratory Report, no. 11. 21. Russell G. Murphy, “The Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 in the New Millennium: Incentives to High Tech Piracy?” Ocean and Coastal Law Journal, 2003, 167. 22. Paul F. Johnston, “Shipwreck: Threatened in Paradise,” http://www .international.icomos.org/risk/2006/30johnston2006an.pdf.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVES

Amirauté de La Rochelle, La Rochelle, France (ALR) B. 5682 Archives Départmentales de la Charente Maritime, La Rochelle, France (ADCM) Notarial register of Rivière & Soullard, 3E 1806 [2] Serie B / 6015 Archives Nationales, Paris (AN) Marine B2 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (AGI) Mexico 617 Biblioteca del Real Palacio, Madrid (BRP) Manuscript 2667 Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (BHC) Translations from the Margry Papers Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin (CAH) Transcripts from AGI and AGN (Archivo General y Público de la Nación Mexico) REPORT

”Search for L’Aimable.” Report to the Texas Historical Commission by Ralph L. Wilbanks, Wes Hall, and Gary E. McKee for Clive Cussler, National Undersea and Marine Agency; project conducted under Antiquities Permit No. 1852.

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PUBLISHED SOURCES

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Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle. Vol. 8 in Great Books of the Western World, edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago, London, and Toronto: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952. Arnold, J. Barto, III. A Matagorda Bay Magnetometer Survey & Site Test Excavation Project. Austin: Texas Antiquities Committee, 1982. ———, and Robert S. Weddle, The Nautical Archeology of Padre Island: The Spanish Shipwrecks of 1554. New York: Academic Press, 1978. Ashburner, Walter. The Rhodian Sea-Law. Edited from the manuscripts by Walter Ashburner. N.p.: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1976. First published 1909 by Oxford. Benedict, Robert D. “The Historical Position of the Rhodian Law.” Yale Law Review 18, no. 4 (February 1909): 223–242. Borgens, Amy. “A Nineteenth Century Shipwreck at Pass Cavallo, Texas.” Texas A&M University, Conservation Research Laboratory Report no. 11, n.d. Bruseth, James E., and Toni S. Turner. From a Watery Grave: The Discovery and Excavation of La Salle’s Ship La Belle. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. Forrestal, Peter P., trans. “Peña’s Diary of the Aguayo Expedition.” Preliminary Studies of the Texas Catholic Historical Society 2, no. 7. Austin: Texas Catholic Historical Society, 1935. Godolphin, John. A View of the Admiral Jurisdiction. London: George Dawes, 1685. Johnston, Paul F. “Shipwreck: Threatened in Paradise.” Heritage at Risk, special edition, 2006. http://www.international.icomos.org/ risk/2006/30johnston2006an.pdf. Lagarde, François, ed. The French in Texas: History, Migration, Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. Malsch, Brownson. Old Indianola: The Mother of Western Texas. Austin, Texas: State House Press, 1988. Reprint of 1977 edition. Margry, Pierre, ed. Découvertes et établissement des Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud de l’Amérique septentrionale (1614–1754). 6 vols. Paris: Jouaust, 1876–1886. Murphy, Russell G. “The Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 in the New Millennium: Incentives to High Tech Piracy?” Ocean and Coastal Law Journal 8 (2003): 167.

B I B L IO G R A PH Y

Pardessus, J. M. Collection de Lois Maritimes anterieures au xviii siècle. Vol. 2. Paris: l’Imprimé Royal, 1831. Parkman, Francis. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1879. Riding Line (newsletter of the Texas Historical Association). Spring 1998, Fall 1998. Seix, Francisco, ed. Enciclopedia jurídica Española. Vol. 6. Barcelona, Spain: n.d. Targa, Carlo. Ponderazioni sopra le contrattazioni marittime. Livorno, Italy: Nella Stamperia di Gio Paolo Fantechi e Compagni, 1755. Tunnel, Curtis. “A Cache of Cannons.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 102, no. 1 (July 1998): 37. Tyler, Ron, Douglas E. Barnett, Roy R. Barkley, Penelope C. Anderson, and Mark F. Odintz, eds. New Handbook of Texas. 6 vols. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996. Valin, René-Josué. Nouveau commentaire sur l’Ordonnance de la Marine du mois d’Août, 1681, 2 vols. La Rochelle, France: Chez Jerôme Legier, 1776. Villiers du Terrage, Marc de. L’Expédition de Cavelier de La Salle dans le Golfe du Mexique (1684–1687), Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1934. Weddle, Robert S. Changing Tides: Twilight and Dawn in the Spanish Sea, 1763–1803. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. ———. The French Thorn: Rival Explorers in the Spanish Sea, 1682–1762. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991. ———, ed. La Salle, the Mississippi, and the Gulf: Three Primary Documents. Mary Christine McKorkovsky and Patricia Galloway, associate editors. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1987. ———. San Juan Bautista: Gateway to Spanish Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. ———. Spanish Sea: The Gulf of Mexico in North American Discovery, 1500– 1685. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1985. ———. Wilderness Manhunt: The Spanish Search for La Salle. First edition. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973. ———. The Wreck of the Belle, the Ruin of La Salle. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001.

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INDEX

Page numbers in italics indicate photographs or maps

Adams, Glen, 104 Admiralty Court (of Guyenne) at La Rochelle, 26, 27, 33, 51, 53, 64, 67, 78, 80, 92; clerk’s office of, 62, 64, 89; office of, 58 Africa, 6 Aigron, Abraham, 7 Aigron, Claude: abused by La Salle, 23, 32; accused, 6, 12, 13, 24, 25–26, 33, 34, 35, 43–50 passim; accuses Mengaud, 28; alleged drinking of, 13, 36; allows Mass, 56; asks suit dismissal, 27, 58, 89; benefited, from lawsuit, 38; blamed by king, 32; in court hearing, 67–77; defendant in lawsuit, 9, 26, 51–52, 89; defense of, 38, 64–67; deposition of, attacked, 62–64; depositions of, 27, 53–55; and dispute with pilot, 6, 12; employed as captain of Aimable, 7; faces criminal charge, 33; focuses on

Mengaud, 29; history’s view of, 38, 39; imprisonment of, 26, 28, 33, 35, 59; La Salle’s mistrust of, 37; and La Salle’s orders, 59–61; on lost cannons, 31; and Massiot’s defense, 90–95; questionable behavior of, 37–38; rebuts plaintiffs’ arguments, 78, 80–89; released from tower, 33; religion of, 7, 8, 53; saved personal effects, 38; spurns aid, advice, 20, 38; on water depth over bar, 17; witnesses for, 28 Aigron, François, 7 Aigron, Jacques, 7 Aimable (cargo ship), 16, 28, 36, 37, 39, 51, 53, 54, 64, 67, 72, 92; in accident with Belle, 13; and Aigron’s alleged dereliction, 74; and Aigron’s conduct, 87; alleged theft from, 33; anchors at Matagorda Bay, 15; attempts to lead fleet, 12; birth on, 12,

I N DE X

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32; blame for loss of, 38; built in England, 6; and cannon controversy, 31; cargo of, 10, 101; cargo salvaged from, 22; crew list of, 9–10; crew of, ordered interrogated, 33; and crew’s testimony, 73; damaged in squall, 14; and danger warning, 75; La Salle sails on, 12; leased to La Salle, 5, 8; Lefort on wreck of, 56–57; and Massiot’s defense, 93; and mid-ocean dispute, 11–12; and orders for entering bay, 60–61; passengers of, 10–11; plaintiffs among crew of, 80; and plaintiffs’ claim, 71; planking of, used at new site, 24, 30; prepares to enter bay, 17; probable wreck site of, 123n5; reported found, 106; sails for America, 11; sale of provisions from, 68; search for, 99–109 passim; wrecking of, 5, 19–20, 35, 43–50 passim, 80–81 Aix, island of, 60 America, 6, 8, 28, 35, 59, 81, 93 Angoulême, France, 7 Anomaly (research vessel), 99, 101, 103, 106 Aristotle, 73, 119–120n14 Arnold, Barto: and finding of Belle, 102; and survey of Pass Cavallo, 99, 100, 101, 105 Arnoul, Pierre (intendant): and Aigron’s arrest, 59; interrogates prisoners, 33, 35, 38; Minet stays with, 28; provokes royal ire, 32 Atchafalaya River, 47 Augustin, Pierre, 10

Auril (bailiff), 52, 59, 62, 64, 67, 89, 90, 91, 95

Barbier, Gabriel, 46 Barraud, Denis (Aigron’s attorney), 26, 27, 57, 59, 62, 64, 67, 77, 90, 91, 95 Baudry, Jean, 10 Baye du Saint Esprit, 44, 47 Beaujeu, Taneguy Le Gallois de (captain of Joly), 28, 36, 37, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 61, 73; advice of, refused, 19, 81, 86; affirms plaintiffs’ case, 62, 95; alleged complaint by, 62, 75, 77; anxious for ship’s safety, 17; disputes La Salle, 11, 13; on La Salle’s location, 32; in La Salle’s reports, 44–46 passim; return voyage of, 24–25; sails for America, 11; sends messenger to La Salle, 56; and sounding of pass, 16, 84; takes La Salle’s reports to France, 23; urges caution for ship, 16; warns Aigron, 75; writes to Seignelay, 25, 32 Belle (light frigate), 12, 16, 20, 24, 26, 38, 45, 52, 61, 73; aids new settlement, 30; assists salvage of Aimable, 19; damaged in squall, 13; enters Matagorda Bay, 17, 44, 48; excavation of, 104, 108; loses anchor, 14–15; prepares to enter Matagorda Bay, 15; salvage of, 103, 106; search for wreck of, 99, 100, 102, 103; wrecking of, 31; wreck of, found, 104, 108 Bigras, Jacques, 10

I N DE X

Bordeaux, France, 10 Bouchereau (Massiot’s attorney), 91, 92, 95 Boutin, Jacques, 10 Bréman, Eustache, 10 British colonies, 6 Bruseth, James E., 25, 102, 106 Bush, Governor George W., 106

Canada, 7, 9, 31, 50, 112n7 cannons: finding of, 104; kept by Joly, 17; loaded on Aimable, 10; lost with Aimable, 22, 48, 49, 107; recovery of, 31, 55, 107, 116n5; taken away in Joly, 49; taken to Garcitas Creek site, 30–31; uselessness of, 31 Cape San Antonio, 13, 15 Caribbean Islands (French), 6 Cavelier, Abbé Jean, 12, 117n7 Cedar Bayou, 13, 15, 99 Chefdebois roadstead, 60 Chenandeau, Duplaise, 64 Chesapeake Bay, 24 Chouty-en-Bretagne, 56 Clement (clerk), 64 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 43 Colbert River, 43, 47, 48, 52, 54, 74, 76, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 93. See also Matagorda Bay, Mississippi River, Rivière Colbert Combizan, Fief of, 6 Conservation Research Laboratory, 106 Crugeón, Louis, 10, 28, 35, 63, 73, 88 Cuba, 12 Cussler, Clive, 104

*** d’Aire, Chevalier, 24 d’Esmanville, 23, 24 Delisle, Moïse Louis (Admiralty Court judge), 26, 53, 55, 56; receives plaintiff ’s petition, 51, 52 Dieppe (Upper Normandy), France: 11 Douay, Father Anastase, 12 Dubois, Pierre, 10, 56, 72–73, 82, 90 Dubouchet (prosecutor), 55, 56 Du Hamel, Ensign, 20, 45 Duhaut, Dominique, 11, 46 Duhaut, Pierre, 11, 46 Dumesny (acting for La Salle), 61

Edict of Fontainebleau, 117n7 Edict of Nantes, 117n7 England, 6 Enríquez Barroto, Juan, 99, 100, 102

Florida, coast of, 47 Fontainebleau, France, 69 Fort-Saint-Louis (name misapplied), 24, 30, 104 France, 8, 9, 11, 19, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 50, 52, 62, 104 French Guiana, 6 French shipwrecks, 108

Gabaret, Christophe, 16, 17, 44 Garcitas Creek settlement, 105, 107; cannons found at, 104; colonists

131 A

I N DE X

132 A

moved to, 24; deserted by La Salle, 31; established, 30–31; massacre at, 32 Georget, Pierre, 36, 38; and Aigron’s criminal charge, 33; Aimable’s gunner, 9, 25, 34; dossier of, 89; issues summons, 64; petition of, 51; minor role of, 29; plaintiff in lawsuit, 8, 9, 12, 26, 43, 53, 57, 59, 80, 90, 92; and plaintiff’s opening argument, 67, 68; provides dossier, 89; responds to Aigron’s brief, 62 Gilmore, Kathleen, 105 Grand Camp, 24, 30, 31 Grand Isle (Louisiana), 13 Guitton, François, 16 Gulf of Mexico, 8, 13, 51, 53, 54, 81, 108

***

Haiti. See Saint-Domingue Hannah Elizabeth, 106–107 Hanseatic League, 27 Hoyt, Steve, 106 Huguenots, 117n7 Huzier (signer of March 1, 1685 report), 46

Karankawa Indians: colonists attempt to seize canoes of, 23, first contact with, 19; settlers massacred by, 32; steal blankets from shipwreck, 22; village site of, 21 Keeran Ranch, 104

Île de Ré, 6 Illinois, 50 Indianola (nineteenth-century port town), 100 Indian Point, 104 Intracoastal Waterway, 105 Iriarte, Pedro de, 99 Isle of Pines (Cuba), 12

Lamason (clerk), 89 La Pierre, Bastien, 10 La Rochelle, France, 6, 9, 31, 33, 51, 67, 69, 89, 92; Aigron family at, 7; archives in, 11; court proceedings in, 53; Joly returns to, 26; port of, 7; Saint-Nicolas Tower of, 28, 59

Jamestown, Virginia, 24–25, 33 Johnston, Paul F., 108 Joly (warship), 8, 9, 16, 19, 20, 26, 27, 32, 33, 44, 45, 47, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 81, 85; and Aimable’s salvage, 22; arrival of, in France, 65; and cannon balls, 104; at “Colbert River,” 81; and crew’s testimony, 73; out-sails Aimable, 12; return voyage of, 24–25; sails for America, 11; takes Aimable crew to France, 6, 23, 24 Joutel, Henri, 19; on Aimable history, 8; blames Aigron for wreck, 20, 36; in charge of Grand Camp, 24; on lightening of Aimable, 17; and mid-ocean dispute, 11–12; reports on sounding, 16

I N DE X

La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de, 38, 39, 51, 52; accuses Aigron, 6, 35, 62, 75; in Aigron’s depositions, 54, 55; and Aimable cargo list, 10; alibis of, 20; assigns blame for ship loss, 23, 122n12; and bay soundings, 16; blamed for ship loss, 57, 84, 88; on cargo lost in wreck, 2, 118n2; and channel marking, 84–85, 87–88; concerns of, 17; confused geography of, 13, 15; and disputes with Beaujeu, 11, 13, 16; doubtful motives of, 37; explores Texas coast, 14; and Garcitas Creek settlement, 25, 30–31, 105; in “general command,” 82; hindsight of, 21; inconsistencies of, 118n12; leases Aimable, 5, 8–9; as Louisiana governor, 8; Minet defects from, 33; observes wreck from afar, 19; official report of, 8, 25–26, 32, 43–46; orders of, 28, 56–61, 63, 65–66, 67, 71, 73–74, 75, 82, 85–87, 91, 93, 94–95; personal traits of, 39, 113n7; and placement of buoys, 76; plans move to Mississippi, 24; questionable motives of, 36–37; refuses advice, 19; seeks Canada, 31; slain, 31; settlement of, 104, 106; signature of, 9; sought by Spain, 99; stands as godfather 12; uncertainty of, 17; on “uselessness” of tradesmen, 11; vessels of, sought, 100, 102, 107 Lavaca Bay, 24, 30, 104 Le Carpentier, (March 1, 1685

report on the wreck of the Aimable), 46 Lefort, Jacques, 54, 56–57, 59 Legereau (bailiff), 91 Le Gros, sieur de, 46 León, Alonso de: cannons buried by, 104; finds ruined settlement, 31; rescues Talon children, 32 Le Prêtre, Sébastien, Marquis de Vauban, 33 Liotot, Étienne (surgeon), 11, 12 Llanos-Cárdenas expedition, 104 L’ordonnance de la Marine. See maritime law Louis XIV, 6, 8; blames Aigron for ship loss, 32–33; orders Minet, Aigron confined in tower, 33 Louisiana (Territory), 8

Madrid, Spain, 99 Mançeau, Jean, 10 Marennes, France, 10 maritime law, 27, 38, 67 —“Ancient Laws of Oleron,” 119n10 —Guide of the Sea, 69, 87 —Hanseatic and Teutonic Laws, 68, 69 —L’Ordonnance de la Marine (new naval ordinance of 1681), 69, 70, 71, 78, 82; on pilot’s duties, 120–123nn21, 22, 23; on returning captain’s report, 119n12; on sailors’ wages, 117n11, 121n2; on sale of ship’s provisions, 118n4 —Oleron’s judgment, 70 —Rhodian sea law, 27, 35, 70 Martin, Pierre, 10

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I N DE X

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Martinique, 8, 50 Massiot, Jean (the younger): acquires Aimable, 6, 37, 39; defendant in civil suit, 9, 26, 29, 33, 34, 51–52, 57–59, 62, 64, 67, 77; defense of, 92–95; dossier of, 89–92; hired plaintiffs, 89; leases ship to La Salle, 8–9; motivation of, questioned, 34; orders of, 28, 59–60, 63, 71, 82; presents dossier, 78; recruits tradesmen for La Salle, 11; retains attorney, 26; signature of, 9; signs cargo list, 10; summoned to court, 53 Matagorda Bay, 19, 21, 43, 48, 107; maps of, 14, 18, 100; order to enter, 60–61; and Pass Cavallo, 99; ship channel of, 105; Spaniards visit, 100; survey of, 100; taken for Mississippi, 15 Matagorda Island, 20, 24, 30, 106 Matagorda Peninsula, 31, 100, 102, 105 Meide, Chuck, 103–104 Membré, Father Zénobe, 20 Mengaud, Jacques Zacharie, 20, 25, 38, 86; Aigron defends against, 65–66, 78; Aimable’s pilot, 9; alleged drinking of, 13, 36; “bad piloting” of, 81; blamed for wreck, 78, 85, 88; and channel-marking, 84–85, 87–88; defendants focus on, 29; and dispute with Aigron, 11–12; files criminal complaint, 33; Massiot defends against, 92; motivation of, 34–35; and pilot’s duties, 87; plaintiff in civil suit, 8, 9, 12, 26, 43, 51, 53, 57–59, 64, 80; and

plaintiff’s hearing, 67–68, 73, 75, 76, 90; presents dossier, 89; rebuts Aigron’s brief, 62; and sounding of pass, 16, 52, 84, 87; and steering controversy, 28, 63, 88–89 Meschers-sur-Gironde, France, 10 Meunier, Pierre, 10 Minet, Jean-Baptiste, 39; on Aigron and Mengaud, 13; on Aimable history, 8; arrest and release of, 26, 33; fixes blame for shipwreck, 20; imprisoned, 59; at Jamestown, 24–25; map by, 18, 100; “objective” view of, 17, 19; reports to Seignelay, 32; returns to France, 23; and sounding of pass, 16; on wrecking of Aimable, 19, 36 Mississippi Delta, 13 Mississippi River: and La Salle’s misplaced landing, 32; and La Salle plan, 5, 10, 23, 24, 30, 31; misplaced on maps, 13; mistaken identity of, 15, 43, 47 Montignac (Charente), 6 Moreau, Pierre, 10 Morton, Robert A., 100, 102

National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), 104, 106 New Mexico, 10 New Orleans, 107 New Spain, 31, 51 Normandy, 11 Nouvelle-Biscay (Nueva Viscaya), 31 Nuestra Señora de Loreto de La Bahía Presidio, 104, 124n13; site of, 25

I N DE X

*** Oléron, île d’, 9, 10

Pallussay, sieur de. See Delisle, Moïse Louis Pass Cavallo, 15, 48; Aimable wreck near, 104; changes of, 105; reconnaissance of, 100, 102, 105; and search for Aimable, 99 Paugron, Moïse, 10 Pelican Shoal, 17 Petit (bailiff), 60, 90 Petit-Goâve, Saint-Domingue (Haiti), 12, 17, 53 Piereson, Bill, 106 Planteau, Isabelle (Madame Talon), 10; gives birth on Aimable, 12; slain by Karankawas, 32 Planterose, J., 46 Poirel, Didier (attorney), 26, 57, 59, 62, 64, 89, 91 Port-de-Paix, Haiti, 12 Port Lavaca, Texas, 105 Port O’Connor, Texas, 102 Provence (French province), 11

Ravenell (signed report of March 1, 1685), 46 Récollet Franciscans, 11 Revocation, the, 117n7 Richaud, Elie, 16, 17, 106 Riding Line, 106 Rivas, Antonio de, 99 Rivière Charente, 7, 25 Robellin, Gabriel (ship’s surgeon), 56, 82

Rochard, Michel (plaintiffs’ attorney), 26, 27, 51, 52, 53, 57, 59, 62, 64, 89, 90, 95 Rochefort, France, 7, 25, 28, 55, 69, 72, 83 Rouen (Normandy), France, 11 Royal Compagnie of Africa, 60 Royal Court, 78

Sablonnière, Marquis de, 46, 113– 114n11 Saint-Domingue (Haiti), 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 24, 32, 49, 51, 68, 93 Saint François (ketch), 10, 11, 12, 60 Saint-Gilles, France, 9 Saint-Nicolas Tower, 28, 32, 33, 59 Salinas Varona, Gregorio de, 104 Saluria (mid-eighteenth century town), 21 Segefardois, Jean, 10 Seignelay, Marquis de (naval minister). 21, 25, 32, 33, 43; letter to, 46–50 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos, 100, 102 Simon, Isaac, 10 South America, 6 Spain, 13, 99 Spaniards, 12, 30, 99 Spanish Sea. See Gulf of Mexico Spanish shipwrecks, 108

Talon, Jean-Baptiste, 10, 32 Talon, Lucien, 10, 32 Talon, Lucien fils, 10, 32 Talon, Madam. See Planteau, Isabelle

135 A

I N DE X

136 A

Talon, Marie-Elisabeth, 10 Talon, Marie-Madeleine, 10, 32 Talon, Pierre, 10, 32 Talon, Robert, 12, 32 Texas, 100, 107; coast of, 60; Coastal Bend, 13; revolutionary period of, 106; Spanish Province of, 31; State of, 5, 31 Texas A&M University, 106 Texas Antiquities Committee, 99, 100, 102 Texas Historical Commission, 102, 105, 106 Texas State Historical Association, 106

Tharay (bailiff or clerk), 56, 89 Thibault (signed report of March 1, 1685), 46 Tremblade, France, 10

United States, 27, 107 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 105

Victoria County, Texas, 104 Virginia. See Aimable

Wingfield, L. G., 101

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