Loss of l'Aimable Marthe returning from Senegal with a cargo of gold

L’Aimable Marthe
by Pascal Kainic

This story is about the loss of L’Aimable Marthe, on the coast of Wales, in the year 1786, from the account of one of the passenger, M. Durand, formerly Governor of Isle Saint Louis :

“I left the Senegal for Le Havre, says M. Durand, on the 24th of July, 1786, on board the brigantine L’Aimable Marthe; the crew consisted of Captain Dore, a Lieutenant, a Carpenter, a Mate and three sailors. The passengers were Messrs. Gourg, Naval Commissioners at Senegal, Longer, Captain of a frigate, Bernard, my cook, a young negro, and myself. 
After an uncommonly long and dangerous passage, we were of opinion, on the morning of the 12th September that we should arrive in the course of the night at Havre, in Normandy, and we in consequence gave ourselves up to that pleasure which travellers always experience at the end of a long voyage; when I perceived that the Captain was out in his reckoning, and that we were in the British Channel. I informed him of this circumstance and his surprise was equal to my own....

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Lost Treasures of the Seven Seas