9.5 Evinrude Cooling System

Fortune Sea, 2: A question

continue our little tour of insults related by the correspondence of the Department of the Navy, preserved in Series B funding navy veterans at the National Archives. I started this series with the tragic, the fatal drowning and harrowing details bonus, but the perils of the sea, it can also be cons-time, rants, volleys of profanity and bad mood . Example.

Delay, or New York - Le Havre via Lorient and Perros-Guirec

It course will appear to those who know me that these are the places mentioned in this letter that caught my attention. Full text, with my comments in brackets

February 3.
Monseigneur le Marechal de Castries, Minister and Secretary of State with the Department of the Navy.

[Yes, strictly speaking, there is no "minister of the navy" in the old regime, he is a minister and Secretary of State (that to say a member of both the king's council and board of mails, top) which is have supported this branch of the royal administration.]

lord, I

the honor to inform Your Lordship that, arrived in New York on the eighteenth of this month in the harbor of Port Louis, where I wet night with the king's ship The Courier Europe I command, Mr. Thevenard sent me back to writing about sailing on the morrow the tide to get to Harbour Grace, order I executed the following day by pairing nineteen.

[Port Louis, Port Louis is next to Lorient Harbour Grace, is of course the port of Le Havre at the entrance of the Seine, a ship, the English packet-boat is a fast ship of modest size in charge of transportation of mail. You feel the joy of the crew to leave the idea of having just arrived for a tour of Britain in winter.]

Since then I've had winds from east and north east east, which forced me to run in the round edges and often reefed the topsails, but a pretty strong gale from the same party last night taking me to the point of not being able to just wear the hijab, I decided to relax at anchor on the Costa de perros Britain, ten miles east of the Isle of stockings, which I was then.

[Of course, tacking in the breeze in January, we did not really want to be there, even if a small boat like that was certainly more gifted than to ship three bridges for this kind of sport. The choice of the bay of Perros can surprise, the bay of Morlaix, well sheltered, being just off the island of Batz - but the input can be dangerous in rough weather, especially as the markup was not as complete as today. The bay of Perros is relatively well protected and very easy Access: There is a logic. Especially since there are issues of crew ...]

My crew has been very low by the number of young people fifteen and sixteen years I've been given, is the most bad condition, there are eight of the post surgeon, some are attacked, where the stone, where the flow of blood, where injured in collision at the point of not render any service whatsoever. I am therefore obliged to pay me in bad weather forces that I can have, and do not do what I do, if I was well armed sailors.

[Bah, that he might be in trouble, the Stouvin commander, not to arrive where we waiting - then suddenly, you have to find reasons ... Eight sailors sick undermine the smooth running of the boat confirms that it is in any case a small boat that is, restricted to the crew.]

I beg you, Monseigneur, of be convinced that soon he will favor any time, I will neglect nothing to get to my destination.

I am with great respect
Monsignor

Your very humble and very obedient servant
Stouvins.

What I like in this letter is that the commander intends to curse in his dugout, against the order fool you gave him, against this dreadful weather, the crew Galapian cons and the cons avoinée lame and he can be caught from his superiors. It does not really want to sail with Captain Stouvin, even on The Courier Europe, dashing king's ship - but the problem does not arise, of course.

Note: This letter is not dated - well, it was the month but not this year. Castries was minister of the navy from 1780 to 1787, the paperboard B ³ contains 803 in principle documents subsequent to 1786 - But the resulting presence of several letters to the officer whose names begin with T reminds pulled a wad of personal records and incorrect arrangement thereafter. Youth Crew Evoq a time of war, where the marine reserve expériementés most (and most talented officers!) For combat units. I may venture thus the year 1783, last year the American War of Independence, which would explain the strategic importance of mail from New York.

This small pleasure of the historian: the documents that give flesh to the story we studies. It does not necessarily need, they are arranged in a corner of his memory and its files. The historian is a tinkerer like the others: "it can still serve."