"M. François de Querangal, first lieutenant of the ship Duc de Penthièvre, belonging to the French East India Company, commanded by M. Ettoupan de Villeneuve, since dead of his wounds after the engagement, deposes that the said ship sailed from the Island of St. Mary, on the coast of Madagascar, on the 12th of September, 1756, bound for the port of L'Orient, in France; that the said ship was compelled, by contrary winds and other stress, to run for the harbour of Corunna, on the coast of Spain; that on the 26th December last, being about one league from land, the Antigallican, displaying Spanish colours and coming within gunshot, they fired a gun across her bows. The vessel immediately hoisted English colours, and we commenced the action.
"The Iron Tower was then about two and a half or three leagues distant. Asked whether he had seen any flags or batteries on shore, he declares that he had seen neither.
"That the said ship, Duc de Penthièvre, was armed with 20 guns at the time of the action, and carried a crew of 150 men; that he had no knowledge of the papers contained in the boxes thrown overboard before the colours were hauled down.
"The said gentleman declares before me, having taken his oath according to the French custom, that the above statement is true."
This is signed by the deponent and duly attested by the Consul, the depositions of the other French officers being in precisely similar terms.
It was on these depositions, together with those of Captain Foster and his assistants, that the Admiralty Court at Gibraltar condemned the ship as "good prize," and with perfect justice; had any ground existed for protest, it should then have been put forward; so the flagrant injustice and iniquity of the Spanish authorities is very apparent. There had been other complaints previously, and the British Ambassador at Madrid had very strongly protested against the favour shown by the Spaniards to French privateers, and had also induced Pitt, the Prime Minister, to support him in a strong letter. But it was all of no avail: there were wheels within wheels, and, rather than make it an occasion of war, the just claims of the Antigallicans were suffered to go by the board.
[8] Inside Isle de Rhé, off the coast of France, close to La Rochelle.
[9] Perhaps Mr. William Foster is responsible for the story here told by the Antigallican narrator, that Anson "had no hand in the matter. That morning he desired a council of war, but Sir Peter Warren told him, 'There are French colours flying! which is a sufficient council of war'; and so bore down upon them, while his lordship lay at a distance." Anson, however, received his peerage for this very action—he was not "his lordship" when he fought it; Warren was knighted at the same time.