18th C Indian Ocean Voyages

Stowaway on the Duc d'Orléans

Tréguier was hired onto the Prince de Conti as a cabin boy with a wage of 6 livres, but he wasn't on the boat when it launched.

Fortunately for him, there was another ship leaving the same day and heading in the same direction. According to the rôles of the Duc d'Orléans, Joséph embarked furtively on the ship the same day he was supposed to leave on the Prince de Conti.



The Duc d'Orléans made a stop at Gorée on its route to the Indian Ocean. Perhaps it was here that the ship's administrators discovered the presence of young Joséph Tréguier. Despite the large size of ship and crew, Tréguier certainly didn't go unnoticed—he appears in the rôles after all. The Prince de Conti, meanwhile, was several hundred kilometres to the west at Cabo Verde. There was surely no communication between the ships, so it is difficult to imagine how both ended up at Foulpointe at the same time. Did Tréguier know he would rejoin his crew? Was it all down to luck?

After almost four months at sea, the Duc d'Orléans arrived at Foulpointe, Madagascar on 23 June. Here, Tréguier managed to transfer over to the proper ship, the Prince de Conti, on 17 July.

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