Le Du Teillay

Posted by Thierry GUIHENEUF on Tuesday 12th of January 2021 22:54

A publication by the Nantes' based historian Marc Paillé (Marc Paillé (1977) THE FRENCH PRIVATEER DU￿TEILLAY WHICH
CARRIED PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD TO THE HIGHLANDS (1745), The Mariner's Mirror, 63:4,
309-310, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.1977.10659044) mentions that the Du Teillay was built by Jean Bourgeois, ship builder in Nantes and sold to Antoine Walsh, his brother Patrick Walsh (1/6) and Nicolas Perrée Du Coudray de la Villestreux. The ship was between 150 and 175 Tonneaux burthen (150 French measurement), 11 1/2 draught laden, and only ... 78 feet in length! No wonder it only officially had a crew of 67 on board (plus passengers). It really was a sloop, represented as a three mast, square-rigged ship with a single gun deck! This ship is of crucial importance in the voyage of Prince Charles Stuart to Scotland in July 1745. Her trace disappears in Amsterdam on the 16th of September 1745 (N.S.) when she is sold to a Dutch merchant, most likely on the island of Pampus, just at the entrance to Amsterdam airport.

Posted by Thierry GUIHENEUF on Tuesday 18th of February 2020 19:15

I believe that the ship known as Du Teillay (a.k.a. "La Doutelle" or "Dutillet") was built in Nantes by ship builder Jean Thomas. The ship was sold in Amsterdam, on its return from Scotland (captain: Claude Durbé), on the 16th of September 1745. The ship's log is available from a book entitled: "Une famille Royaliste et Irlandaise" by Duke Louis de la Trémoille and translated into English in a publication of 1903. This light frigate, used as a corsair as well as a merchant ship, is of great historical significance since she transported Prince Charles Stuart and his companions, a.k.a. the "seven men of Moidart" to Scotland for the start of the Jacobite uprising of 1745. Antoine Walsh was on board but as the ship owner, not the captain of the ship, a task he delegated to the experienced Nantes corsair captain Claude Durbé who later became a ship owner and built his own hotel in Nantes in 1756 still standing today at 86, quai de la Fosse, Nantes (Fr). There is a very realistic model of the ship that can be viewed at visitor's centre in Glenfinnan in Lochaber, Scotland.