The journal of a Frenchman in Malayan waters, 1804; . C. Northcote Parkinson
C. Northcote Parkinson translated and introduced the journal of Charles Duclos-Legris, a French naval coxswain who served aboard the Marengo under Admiral Durand Linois during the 1804 campaign in the Indian Ocean. Published in 1952 in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the extract covers the period from late January to early April 1804, encompassing the French squadron’s interception attempt against the East India Company’s China fleet off Pulau Aur and the dramatic survival narrative of a lost boat’s crew.
Summary
The manuscript, held in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, comprises sixty-seven pages of French text and seventy-seven illustrations, nine in watercolour. Duclos-Legris, a native of the St. Malo region who first went to sea in 1792, served in the French Navy until captured in 1797 and held prisoner until 1801. He rejoined the Marengo as coxswain of the captain’s gig in February 1803 and served throughout Linois’s Indian Ocean campaign, including the Battle of Pulau Aur and the ship’s eventual capture. Parkinson notes that the journal was copied out at leisure during Duclos-Legris’s second captivity in England, which lasted until 1814, and that the text is likely more reliable than the drawings, which were based on recollections of events witnessed five to ten years earlier (pp. 68–69).
The journal records the squadron’s arrival off Pulau Aur on January 28, 1804, where Linois had positioned himself to intercept the East India Company’s China fleet. After capturing several merchant vessels, including the English East Indiaman Henrietta on February 11, the squadron encountered the China Fleet on February 14. The action that followed was inconclusive: Linois, deceived by the Indiamen’s warship disguises, broke off the engagement and sailed for Batavia. Duclos-Legris, writing with the benefit of hindsight, concludes that Linois had been rash to attack and lucky to escape lightly, though his estimate of the Indiamen’s armament was wide of the mark (pp. 69–74).
The most compelling portion of the extract is the first-person account of the lost yawl, told by one of its crew to Duclos-Legris at Mauritius. On February 12, the boat carrying Linois’s A.D.C., the purser, a midshipman, and the boat’s crew was separated from the flagship by a strong contrary wind and driven southward before the monsoon. Over the following weeks the crew endured hunger, thirst, and encounters with hostile and indifferent Malay inhabitants, eventually reaching Palembang on February 23, where the Dutch Governor provided them with a small schooner to continue to Batavia. The A.D.C. died “worn out by hardship” upon their arrival (pp. 76–83).
Key Findings
- The Marengo fired 380 shots during the action of February 14–15, 1804, yet Linois broke off the engagement after being deceived by the East Indiamen’s warship disguises; Duclos-Legris’s post-hoc estimate of the convoy’s strength (652 guns, 2,262 men) was significantly inflated (pp. 73–74).
- The lost yawl carried a tailored sail plan with two masts setting single high-peaked dipping lugs, a configuration Parkinson identifies as characteristic of Malay boats including the sampan gubang and lanchang (p. 68, n. 3).
- The crew of the yawl survived approximately three months at sea and ashore, subsisting on sago palm hearts, rice purchased from Malay islanders, and provisions supplied by an English ship at Pulau Bintan; two men died during the ordeal (pp. 77–83).
- Duclos-Legris describes the inhabitants of Pulau Aur as armed with poisoned daggers, thievish, and cruel, though Parkinson’s footnotes note that Horsburgh’s Directory (1817) characterised the same natives as “shy of strangers” but “generally found to be inoffensive” (pp. 71, 68 n. 8).
- The Dutch Governor at Palembang (referred to as “Panimban” in the original) spoke French and provided the yawl’s crew with a six-gun schooner, rice, arrack, and one piastre per man per day from February 24 to March 1 (pp. 82–83).
- The term “ringue” (ringgit) used by Malay canoemen demanding payment is traced by Parkinson to the Malay word for “serrated,” originally applied to the saw-edged Spanish milled dollar (p. 80, n. 21).
Conclusion
Parkinson presents this journal as a valuable primary source for the 1804 French naval campaign in the Indian Ocean, offering a ground-level perspective from a junior officer who witnessed both the strategic fiasco at Pulau Aur and the human cost of naval operations in Malayan waters. The account of the lost yawl, in particular, provides rare detail of French seamen’s interactions with Malay communities across the Riau-Lingga Archipelago, Bangka Strait, and Palembang during a period when European naval presence in the region was intensifying.
Context
- The manuscript (M.S. 83) is held in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the translation was reproduced by permission of the Trustees (p. 68, n. 1).
- The Marengo was the flagship of Admiral Durand Linois from 1803 to 1806; the squadron included the frigates Semillante and Belle-Poule, the corvettes Berceau and L’Aventurier (the latter a Dutch vessel), and the Marengo herself, an 80-gun ship of the line (p. 74, n. 13).