Robert Surcouf

 

 

A life-long rebel who was considered brave even by his enemies, Robert Surcouf earned the title ‘King of the Corsairs’, and was decorated as a hero by Napoleon himself. Unlike most men involved in sea crime, Surcouf’s industrious life appears to have been a happy one. In any case, he avoided the gibbet, and his passing was marked by a grand funeral cortege of 50 boats, illustrating just how popular a figure this privateer had become.

 

 

Robert Surcouf was one of the most successful privateers, or corsairs, of his time. His fame in his native France and throughout Europe was such that he was known as ‘Le Roi des Corsaires’, or ‘The King of the Corsairs’.

 

Playing hooky

Born in December 1773, the young Robert grew up in the seaside town of St Malo, Brittany, which had been a fortified island in the Middle Ages and by the 18th century had become a well-known haunt for pirates from around the globe. He attended a Jesuit school, but his strict religious education did not prevent him from hankering after a seafaring life. Legend has it that at the age of just 13, he slipped away from school, stole a boat and went sailing on the sea. However, he encountered a storm and was lucky to be rescued by the coastguard, who brought the truant home. Undeterred by this failure, Robert continued to dream of a life on the ocean wave, and when he left school, he found work on a merchant ship travelling to India. He was only 15 years old when he made this first voyage.

 

War hero

On Surcouf’s return to France several years later, he found there had been radical changes, as a result of the French Revolution. The new regime favoured independent entrepreneurs like himself, and he soon took advantage of the situation. Sailing to Mauritius, which at the time was a French colony named Ile de France, he became involved in hostilities against the British, who were trying to take control of the island. As second in command of the warship Cybele, Surcouf helped to repel the British navy, in a battle that went down in history as a triumph for the French. This was because Surcouf had a far smaller fleet than the British, yet still managed to win the day.

In the years that followed, Surcouf continued to be a thorn in the side of the British. In 1794, on a voyage to Mauritius, he captured three British ships by means of trickery. As he sailed by, he failed to raise the French flag, whereupon the British ships fired a warning shot. He took the warning shot as meaning that the British wanted to engage in battle, and promptly began to fire back in self-defence. Eventually, the British conceded defeat, and the ships were taken to Mauritius, where their cargo of rice and other foodstuffs was seized by the authorities. As it happened, there was a severe food shortage on the island, so Surcouf was feted as a hero.

 

David and Goliath

Up to this point, Surcouf’s actions at sea had been technically illegal, so he returned to France to receive a letter of marque. This was a document issued by the government that would allow him to attack enemy shipping, under the legal protection of the authorities. With this under his belt, he now became a fully-fledged privateer, a role that he relished. With a new, heavily armed ship, the Clarisse, and a crew of over 100 men, he began to roam the seas, capturing ships wherever he went, from Europe to the Far East. On one occasion, he captured a British ship, the Auspicious, with a cargo worth thousands, and was forced to speed home with the British navy in hot pursuit.

With continuing hostilities between France and Britain, Surcouf became one of the leading privateers of his day. As captain of the warship Confiance, he captured a total of nine British ships, as well as the Kent, a ship sailing under charter from the East India Company, which at the time had a monopoly on trade in the area. Once again, it was a David and Goliath situation, with the small French force facing the much larger British one, but Surcouf eventually managed to capture the Kent. As a result of this triumph, he returned home covered in glory, and became a household name in France. In Britain, however, he was regarded as a common pirate, and the British government offered a sizeable reward for his capture.

 

Legion d’honneur

At the dawn of the 19th century, Surcouf had a change of heart, retired from privateering, married and settled down in St Malo to attend to his business affairs. By now, he was an extremely wealthy man, and had enriched the city’s coffers too. It was rumoured that the Emperor Napoleon himself often borrowed from St Malo’s treasury to pay for his war campaigns. Surcouf enjoyed friendly relations with the emperor, and on one occasion asked him if he could build a terrace made of coins outside his residence. The emperor refused, saying he did not want people walking on the image of his face, whereupon Surcouf built the terrace with the coins stacked upright, with the edges as a surface, so that the royal visage would not be sullied.

Yet despite his life of ease in St Malo, Surcouf could not keep away from the sea for long. In 1804, he succumbed to the temptation to return to the battle at sea. Once again, he managed to defeat his enemies, making such a reputation for himself that when opponents heard he was on board a ship, they often simply surrendered or sailed away. After many adventures, he returned to France and was decorated with the Legion d’Honneur by Napoleon.

 

Final battle

Surcouf’s final years were spent as a ship owner, establishing trade in many parts of the world, including the West Indies, Canada, India and Africa. He amassed an enormous amount of wealth, and was generous in financing municipal initiatives of all kinds. His final battle was a small one, but typical of his courage: seeing an old man being bullied by Prussian officers in a bar, he fought them off with a pool cue, defeating all 11 of them.

Surcouf died on 8 July 1827. His passing was marked by a grand funeral cortege of 50 sailing boats, who carried his body to its final resting place out at sea.