Gwyn, Julian

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

Untapped Source for the Study of French West Indies in the Eighteenth Century by Julian GWYN • One of the inevitable by-products of war between Great Britain, France and Spain in the eighteenth century was the serious disruption of mail. The hundreds of vessels captured during every war year pro-duced, among other things, thousands of undelivered letters and parcels. T·he more official-looking letters and despatches were invariably opened, decoded if necessary and translated, before being studied for clues to the enemy's intentions. Such documents have received due attention from historians of eighteenth-century international relations. Yet these official despatches constituted hut a small portion of the intercepted post, and for historians interested in social and economic history the rest of the undelivered mail is of far greater importance. Recently in researching among the papers of the British High Court of Admiralty, I came across thousands of letters that had been captured by British and colonial warships and privateers from the French and Spanish during the various wars of the eighteenth century. The great majority of these pertained to the French colonies in the West Indies, principally Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French settlements on His-paniola : Cap Franc;ois, Petit Goave, and Leogane. The heaviest concentra-tion of letters relate to the years 1744-1748, 1755-1762 and 1778-1779. The fascinating aspect of this discovery is that perhaps 90% of the corre-spondence has never been opened, for the seals are still unbroken. Some of the letters, indeed, are still in the small hemp postal hags of the time and addressed to the High Court of Admiralty. From the 10% of letters that were opened, one can form some impression of what the whole collection consists. Here we find intimate private correspondence between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters, between parents and children. Here too are military com-missions, signed by the king, notaries' legal documents, newspapers from • Julian Gwyn is Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa. NOTES DE RECHERCHE 113 France and the Dutch Republic, new hooks, playing cards, unpublished musical scores. But the great mass of papers pertain to business activity, the weekly and monthly correspondence between merchants and their agents abroad, together with the detailed accounts of their transactions. Here too are found journals of scientific observations of the climate among the islands. Altogether there appear to he almost as many letters that originated in France, as came from the islands. Taken together they could add greatly to a chapter in the social and economic history of the colonies. I was curious to see if there were as well letters and papers to and from Nouvelle-France, Isle-Royale and Nouvelle-Orleans. I was successful, in my hurried search, in finding some from Nouvelle-Orleans, hut until all the letters are opened and sorted it will not he known if something substantial has survived relating to these other colonies. For those who might he interested to examine this collection, the letters are available through the Public Record Office, London, England, though they are actually stored in Ashridge, Hertsfordshire. Facilities for using materials stored at Ashridge have been opened in the Land Registry Office, Lincolns Inn Fields, London, W.C.2. The letters are loose in boxes and very dusty, hut otherwise in excellent condition. The official P.R.O. reference to the papers is High Court of Admiralty 30 "Miscellanea", the index for which is available only at the P.R.O., from which the follow-ing information is taken : INTDCEPTED MAILS AND PAPERS H.C.A. 30/232-234 1743-1749 Dutch and French 235-246 1743-1749 French 253-257 1750-1756 French 260.265 1756-1762 French 273-274 1777-1779 French 278 1777-1781 French 279-310 1778-1779 French 383 1782 French 

Untapped Source for the Study of French West Indies in the Eighteenth Century

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Untapped Source for the Study of French West Indies in the Eighteenth Century

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)