Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 16

The Battle of the Restigouche

by Judith Beattle and Bernard Pothier

The Voyage from Bordeaux to Canada

Led by the Machault, the little fleet set out down the river from Bordeaux. The complete fleet consisted of six ships: the Machault, 500 tons, 150-man crew, Captain Giraudais: the Bienfaisant, 320 tons, Captain Jean Gramon: the Marquis de Malauze, 354 tons, Captain Antoine Lartigue: the Fidélité, 450 tons, Captain Louis Kanon le jeune: the Soleil. 350 tons, Captain Clemenceau: and the Aurore, 450 tons, Captain François Desmortier. With these six, however, were travelling "plusieurs autres qui setaient mist sous mon Escortte pour vidé les Caps [Cape Finisterre],"¹ and it was in escorting these ships that the tiny fleet ran into difficulty. As the president of the Navy Board wrote, "il est facheux que ce convoi ait été obligé d'aller chercher les caps qui sont ordinairement les lieux ou les Ennemis se tiennent en croisière."²

On 11 April, the second day out, the fleet sighted two British ships — part of Boscawen's blockade — and the signal was given "Sauve qui peut." Following the instructions given to Giraudais to take any precautions "pour la conservation de son convoy pendant la traversée en cas de rencontre facheuse,"³ the Machault led the British on a ten and one-half hour chase away from the fleet. Night saved the Machault, but only the Marquis de Malauze and the Bienfaisant rejoined the frigate, the former on 12 April, the latter on 17 April.

Two ships, the Soleil and the Aurore, from the already small fleet had been lost to the Canadian cause while just off Europe. A newspaper account of the ships taken by Boscawen mentioned:

Le Soleil of Bordeaux, of 360 tons, 12 guns, 45 men, laden with stores, ammunition and provision and commanded by M. Du Chambon, taken by Lieutenant Norwood in his Majesty's Ship Adventure. She had on board one Captain three Corporals and 60 private men, and sailed from Bordeaux the 10th of April.⁴

The Fidélité suffered as final a fate as the captured ships:

Le vingtième jour de notre navigation ce navir coulait à fond par un vague d'eau, les quatre officiers de troupes, deux soldats, le capitaine et onze hommes de son équipage nous sommes rendu dans un canot à une des Isles des Assores.⁵

After this inauspicious start in which half of the convoy was lost, the journey progressed uneventfully until the fleet approached the St. Lawrence River. In mid-May, at Ile aux Oiseaux the French captured a British ship on its way to Quebec City. When they learned from their prisoners that the British fleet had preceded them up the river, they called a hasty council and decided to make for Chaleur Bay.

By 16 May the fleet had arrived at Gaspé where they encountered English ships. Duncan Campbell, the master of one of the English ships, recorded the affair:

on the 16th about two in the afternoon being close in with Gaspy I put about and stood off from it, and soon discovered three ships standing in from Eastward with English Colours flying being then very nigh them, and one of them to Windward and the other two a head, I saw no possibility of escaping them even had I known them to be french ships, which I never judged until the weathermost [the Bienfaisant] bore down and desired me to strike to the King of France, the other two bore down upon four more English Vessels that were to leeward and having got information from a French pilot that I had that Lord Colvill was got up the River. Having passed through the Bay of Chaleure they entered the River Ristigush. . . .⁶

The other English ships captured that day were the "Augustus, Barnabas Velman [Captain Wellman]⁷ from New London, but last from Louisbourgh, Bangs [Captain Banks]⁸ from New York, Cushing from Casco-Bay; Campbell [possibly Duncan Campbell], Swinney and Maxwell from Halifax, bound up river."⁹ On 17 May they captured two more ships and, as a prisoner later wrote, "if the weather had not been foggy, would have taken all."¹⁰ With their prizes in tow, the French convoy made its way into its chosen refuge, Chaleur Bay.