Privateer Jean Syvret
Privateer Jean Syvret
Jean Syvret, the son of Constable of St Ouen, Captain Philippe Syvret, and Anne Hue, was destined to go to sea at an early age, joining a Jersey privateer at only 14 in 1798
Diary
Jean Syvret kept a diary which is now in the possession of La Société Jersiaise and gives us a fascinating insight into the life of a privateer and prisoner of the French.
By the time he was 16 he had obviously made his mark as a seaman because he was a prize master, responsible for bringing back ships captured from the enemy from as far away as the Atlantic coast of Africa.
The Peace of Amiens in 1802 brought a temporary halt to privateering and Jean Syvret joined the cod trade in Newfoundland, but when war broke out again two years later his experience was much in demand and he was recalled as second in command of the privateer Hope.
Overconfidence was to be the downfall of the young man not yet 20. He was drinking with the officers of two other privateers, the Phoenix and the Marquis of Townsend off the coast of Spain when the three second officers decided to take their longboats to attack some small French ships close to the shore.
Capture
They were surprised by some much larger French warships and Syvret decided to beach his boat and try to make his way inland. But he was captured by the Spanish and put in prison in Corunna. He dug a hold in the prison wall, escaped, stole a boat and was then recaptured. He was soon furtunate enough to be sent home as part of a prisoner exchange, but in September 1805 he was captured again. He was second mate on the Commerce, which in partnership with the English frigate Egyptianwas chasing a small French lugger, which lured the privateer on to rocks. His diary records that he took command when woken because Capt de Gruchy and Lieut Le Gallais ‘were in a great state’.
The Commerce sank and the 32 survivors took to a smaller boat and were eventually captured when they landed close to the mouth of the Loire.
Sarrelbire
Syvret was marched across France to Verdun and in August 1806 he was transferred to the notorious French prison at Sarrelibre, where he recorded that 8,000 prisoners of war were held, 18 officers sharing a room in the three-storey barracks outside the city wall. It was two men to a bed and Syvret shared with Abraham Vautier. They hired pillows and bedding in the town because the French only provided a single blanket.
They were locked in at night and had to be present for roll calls at noon and in the early evening, but otherwise they were free to walk along the city wall, from which they could see that Sarrelibre was full of French soldiers. There were over 2,000 mounted soldiers and up to 6,000 infantry.
Jean Syvret remained in Sarrelibre until August 1808 when was moved to hospital at Metz after contracting a fever. There he med several Jerseymen, Philippe Langlois from St Mary and a Mr Le Beouf, who both died, and Philippe Renouf, who had lost a leg and an eye.
Syvret and Renouf were due to be discharged together, but a reoccurrence of his fever meant that Syvret did not return to Sarrelibre until 6 January 1809. He had to walk there, unsupervised, through snow and ice.
Return to prison
When he arrived he discovered that Abraham Vautier had not been paying for the bed they shared and so he chose a new bedfellow, Captain Edwards, an Englishman. They had enough money to pay a boy to do their work, cook for them and collect their water from the market place, for a shilling a week.
Syvret’s diary described how some of the prisoners passed their time forming schools and teaching those who were illiterate to read and write. He taught navigation, which would stand him in good stead when he eventually returned home.
But that return was still some years off and Syvret began to act as an interpreter for an English doctor and was allowed into the town in the mornings and for a long period in the afternoons and evenings. The doctor carried out an operation to reverse the commandant’s wife’s blindness and Syvret was asked to visit twice a day to apply eyedrops.
Marriage
He fell in love with the daughter of the family, Jeanne Antoinette Tortorithy, and they were permitted to marry on 10 October 1810. They lived with her family and had several children. They would be separated for some time, however, because all the prisoners were evacuated from Sarrelibre in Decemb er 1813 after Napoleon’s defeat at Moscow.
Syvret and his fellow Jersey prisoner John Le Gresley escaped as they were marched away from Sarrelibre and managed to walk through deep snow to the Russian lines. Syvret was back in Jersey on 5 March 1815 and his wife and family would join him there.
