Robert Surcouf was born
12 December 1773 in Saint-Malo, a
fortified town in Brittany,
traditionally a corsair stronghold. He attended a religious school and was
educated by the Jesuits. At 13, he
escaped his teachers and stole a small craft to prove his ability to sail; he
was subsequently caught in a tempest and had to be rescued.
At age 15, he enlisted
on a merchantman to India.
In 1792 he came back to
Saint-Malo and discovered the political changes France had undergone in the
wake of the French Revolution. He sailed to Île de
France (present-day Mauritius) in August
on a commercial brig, and was
informed on his arrival of the outbreak of war against Britain. Île de France was blockaded by two British ship: the
50-gun HMS Centurion, and the
44-gun HMS Diomede, commanded by Commodore Osborn. Surcouf
was made a second officer of the 40-gun frigate Cybèle, which, with 32-gun
frigate Prudente and brig Coureur
engaged and repelled the attackers. Surcouf was one of the heroes of the day.
He was made a captain
in Île de France, and expressed his ambition to wage corsair warfare against
Great Britain. However, the Convention frowned at privateers,
and it was difficult to obtain a letter of marque.
On 3 June 1794, Surcouf
sailed with the 4-gun ship La Créole, with a complement of 30 men, with
orders to bring rice to Mauritius, and encountered three English ships escorted
by the 26-gun Triton; he used a technicality to engage combat in
self-defence, by not flying his colours until the English ships requested them
by firing a warning shot (a naval convention of the time), which Surcouf later
reported to consider an aggression. After a brief gunnery exchange, the British
ships lowered their flag and were brought back to Mauritius, with their cargo
of rice and maize. Surcouf
was welcomed as a saviour in the famished Port Louis. The
capture was declared legal, but in the absence of a letter of marque, the
authorities retained the entire cargo (a portion of which normally goes to the
corsair).
Following a dispute
with the governor of Île de France, Surcouf sailed to France to receive his letter of marque. He
returned to sea in Nantes in August
1798, as captain of the 18-gun Clarisse, with 105 men. He captured four
ships in the South Atlantic, and two others near Sumatra in February 1799. On
11 November, the 20-gun Auspicious was captured, with a cargo worth in
excess of one million francs. Surcouf later had to flee before the 38-gun
frigate HMS Sybille, throwing eight guns
overboard to out-sail the British warship. He captured a British brig and an
American merchantman before returning to Île de France.
In May 1800, Surcouf
took command of Confiance, a fast 18-gun ship from Bordeaux undergoing
repairs in Île de France.
Beginning in March, he
led a brilliant campaign which resulted in the capture of nine British ships.
On 7 October 1800, in the Bay of Bengal, off Sand Heads, Confiance met
the 38-gun Kent, a 820-ton[1] East Indiaman, under
Captain Robert Rivington, with 400 men and a company of naval riflemen. Despite
being outnumbered three to one, the French managed to seize control of the Kent.
He became a living legend in France and, in England, a public enemy whose
capture was valued at 5 million francs, although he was noted for the
discipline of his crew and his humane treatment of prisoners.
On 13 April 1801,
though chased by British warships, he arrived in La Rochelle. He settled
in Saint-Malo, married,
and spent six years in retirement as a businessman.
In 1803, at the
breaking of the Treaty of Amiens, First
Consul Napoleon Bonaparte personally offered him
the title of captain and command of a
frigate squadron in the Indian Ocean. Surcouf, however, refused, for two
reasons: first, he would not have been allowed to operate as independently as
he desired; and second, he believed that the naval war against England should
be waged by commerce raiding rather than by direct naval assault and squadron
tactics. In 1805, Napoleon did opt for a blockade against
England rather than direct confrontation, and allowed privateers to operate
with relative impunity. Surcouf left in good terms, and was made officer of the
Légion d'Honneur on 18 July 1804.
In 1804, Surcouf went
into business as ship-owner, and equipped 14 privateers in the Indian Ocean
(among them his brother Nicolas Surcouf and his
cousin Joseph Potier). Their achievements,
however, were somewhat less impressive than Surcouf's own: four of the corsairs
were captured by British warships, and 5 campaigns turned a deficit.
In 1807, a British
vessel captured Nicolas Surcouf. On 2 March, Surcouf returned to sea on a
specially built three-master, the 20-gun Revenant. Revenant was constructed under special
directives by Surcouf himself, with a completely coppered hull, and a
remarkable (for the time) top speed of 12 knots.
Surcouf arrived at Île
de France in June, defeating the British blockade and capturing several ships
on the journey. During the subsequent campaign, which was to be his last,
Surcouf captured 16 British ships, partly because British ships tended strike their colours as soon as
they realised their opponent was Surcouf. He returned to Île de France in
February 1808. He then decided to stay on the island, leaving the campaign to
his second-in-command (and cousin) Joseph Potier. In two campaigns, the
latter captured about 20 ships, including the large 34-gun Portuguese Conceçao.
The governor of Île de
France, General Charles Decaen, seized the
Revenant for the defence of the island. After a heated argument with
Decaen, Surcouf acquired the frigate Sémillante, renamed her Charles,
and sailed her back to France. In the meantime, Decaen had confiscated all
Surcouf's possessions in the Indian Ocean. In October 1808, the Revenant
(renamed Iéna) was captured by a British warship and renamed Victor.
She was retaken two years later by the frigate Bellone, under captain
Duperré, and kept the Victor name. She later took part in the Battle of Grand Port.
On 4 February 1809, Charles
arrived in France with an 8-million-franc cargo. Surcouf was received by
Napoleon and made Baron d'Empire, and his possessions were returned to
him.
In 1812, Surcouf
obtained his last privateer, the Renard ("Fox"), a
14-gun cutter. She was
commissioned under captain Leroux-Desrochettes, and fought a bitter battle on 9
September against the British 16-gun Alphea. Alphea exploded,
taking all hands with her, while Renard sustained 33 casualties,
including her captain, over a crew of 46.
In January 1814,
Surcouf was made a colonel in the National Guard of Saint-Malo. However, he
took no part in the Hundred Days as a chief
of Legion. After the war, he returned to Saint-Malo, rich and with the title of
baron, and became
a merchant ship-owner, establishing business with Terre-Neuve, the Caribbean, Africa,
and the Indian Ocean.
He died on 8 July 1827,
and was carried to his grave by sea on a flotilla of over 50 sailboats.
