| Bristol ss: | Bristol Apr. 23d 1746. |
Personally appeared the above named Benj'n Munro and Will'm Kipp, (being bound to Sea), and made Oath to the truth of the above written evidence: taken in Perpetuam Rei Memoriam before us two of his Majs. Justices of the peace in and for the County of Bristol:[9] Quorum Unus,
Jona: Woodbury.
Joseph Russell.
[1] Rhode Island Archives, volume lettered "Admiralty Papers, 1746-1750", p. 45. Capt. Simeon Potter of Bristol (a town in Massachusetts till January, 1747, in Rhode Island after that date) was one of the most noted and successful of the privateers of his time. His raid on French Guiana in November, 1744, though not enormously profitable nor of much military importance, makes a very picturesque story, chiefly because of the vivid account we have of it from one of its victims, Father Elzéar Fauque, an intelligent Jesuit, who was serving the mission at Oyapoc, and was carried away as a prisoner by Potter when he sacked and destroyed that settlement. Father Fauque's narrative, a letter to an officer of his society, dated from Cayenne, Dec. 22, 1744, is in the Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses, XXVII. 172-250 (Paris 1749), VIII. 387-454 (ed. 1781), IV. 493-533 (ed. 1819), II. 34-50 (ed. 1838). There is an English translation in Bishop W.I. Kip's Historical Scenes from the Old Jesuit Missions (N.Y., 1875), pp. 153-205, reprinted in Professor W.H. Munro's Tales of an Old Sea Port (Princeton, 1917), pp. 48-93, in which Potter's life is also told. The admiralty case arose from questions respecting disposal of the booty. Prince Charles of Lorraine was brother-in-law of Maria Theresa, and commanded her army against Frederick the Great. According to Father Fauque, the privateer so named carried 10 cannon, 12 swivel-guns and 61 men. Lettres Édifiantes (ed. 1819), IV. 494.
[2] Cayenne the chief town of French Guiana. For the pronunciation, see [doc. no. 63], [note 20].
[3] Oyapoc, on a river of the same name, lies some 80 miles to the southeast of Cayenne, toward the Brazilian boundary.
[4] Macouria, a lady's plantation a little northwest of Cayenne. Father Fauque, ubi sup., pp. 519-520.
[5] Father Fauque was not a friar, but a Jesuit.
[6] M. d'Orvilliers, father of the celebrated admiral of that name. La Condamine, returning by way of the Amazon and of Oyapoc from his celebrated geodetic expedition to Peru, had spent five months with him at Cayenne earlier in this year. Relation Abrégée, pp. 209-214.
[7] The Dutch then possessed both what is now Dutch and what is now British Guiana. In 1744 their possessions constituted three colonies, Surinam, Berbice, and Essequebo, of which Surinam, the present Dutch Guiana, was the most important. The fort spoken of was at the capital, Paramaribo.