Declaration of Surgeon Jean Rousseau
6-gun, 63-man Sea King under Saint-Malo’s Montigny La Palisse - tied to history of Bartholomew Roberts.
On the 21st of October, 1720, there appeared before us in Guadeloupe Mr. Jean Rousseau, Surgeon aboard the ship from Honfleur named the *Bon Pasteur*—Captain Grout, also a burgher—who, having departed from Sainte-Anne (Grande-Terre) on this island and set a course for France, was captured by an English pirate vessel on March 5th of the current year at a latitude of 17 degrees 30 minutes, and was held captive by the said pirate—who was without a surgeon of his own—from the aforementioned 5th of March until the 1st of this month. During the time they were careening their ship at Carriacou [Curacoa], the said Rousseau, wishing to leave them, made several unsuccessful attempts to do so; having been caught during the first attempt, he was bound to a cannon on the said pirate vessel for three days, at the end of which time he was scheduled to have his head smashed in—a sentence that would indeed have been carried out had not a man named Montigny, from Dunkirk (the Captain of the said pirate vessel), untied him and told him to save himself by swimming ashore, which he fortunately managed to do. At the time the deponent was captured aboard the *Bon Pasteur*, the pirates were cruising off the coast of Barbados with a crew numbering only 48 men—all English, including six Negroes. On March 10th, having encountered an English patrol vessel from Barbados, their ship sustained three cannon hits below the waterline and was forced to flee and set sail for the Cape Verde Islands, where they repaired their vessel; subsequently, they set a course for the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, where they encountered a ship from Saint-Malo which they sank, having first rescued the entire crew and sent them back to France aboard another vessel. They also captured or sank—while on the said Grand Banks of Newfoundland—six other ships, both English and French, and plundered nearly two hundred vessels of various nations. Subsequently, having entered the Bay of Despair on the coast of Newfoundland, they detained nineteen English vessels there; of these, they burned the flagship and seized a 24-gun frigate to serve as their own vessel. Upon departing the said Bay, they encountered a ship from Granville named the *Pierre Auguste*, which they seized and exchanged for the vessel they had previously been sailing. They then set sail for Carriacou, and en route, they plundered three English vessels, taking from their crews the number of men they required.
Upon having the present declaration read aloud to him, the said Rousseau affirmed that it contained the truth and that he had nothing to add to or subtract from it, save that—after having reached the island of Carriacou, where he spent the night in the woods—he subsequently boarded a French boat arriving from Tobago, which transported him to Martinique. Executed on the day and in the year hereinbefore stated. Signed: Jean Rousseau.
Collated against the original, which is in our possession.
De Pas Fequieres Benard