When Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, landed on the Texas coast
in 1685, bent on founding a French colony, his enterprise was
doomed to failure. Not only was he hundreds of miles from his
intended landfall-the mouth of the Mississippi-but his supply ship,
Aimable, was wrecked at the mouth of Matagorda Bay, leaving the
colonists with scant provisions and little protection against local
Indian tribes. In anger and disgust, he struck out at the ship's
captain, Claude Aigron, accusing him of wrecking the vessel
purposely and maliciously. Captain Aigron and his crew escaped the
doomed colony by returning to France on the warship that had
escorted the expedition on its ocean crossing. Soon after reaching
France, Aigron found himself defendant in a civil suit filed by two
of his officers seeking recompense for lost salary and personal
effects, and then imprisoned on order of King Louis XIV while La
Salle's more serious accusations were being investigated. In this
book, Robert Weddle meticulously recounts, through court documents,
the known history of Aigron and the Aimable, and finds that despite
La Salle's fervent accusations, the facts of the case offer no
clear indictment. The court documents, deftly translated by
Francois Lagarde, reveal Captain Aigron's successful defense and
illuminate the circumstances of the wreck with Aigron's testimony.
Much is also revealed about the French legal system and how the sea
laws of the period were applied through the French government's
L'Ordonnance de la Marine.
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