Jean-François Hodoul

Jean-François Hodoul (11 April 1765 – 10 January 1835) was a sea captain, corsair, and later merchant and plantation owner in Isle de France (Mauritius).

Origins Hodoul was born on 11 April 1765 La Ciotat, Provence. His father, Raymond, was a charcutiere; his mother was Geneviève Cauvin. He left for France's colonies in the Indian Ocean at the age of 24, and arrived at Mauritius in 1789, on board Scipion. Other sources state that he arrived there on 12 April 1790, the day after his 25th birthday.

He rapidly became a sea captain. By 1791 he was master of Deux Sœurs. Two years later, he was master of the brig Succès. During this period he transported slaves from Africa to the Indian Ocean colonies of Île de France and Île Bourbon (Réunion).

Privateer In 1793 the French Revolutionary Wars broke out, and with them a battle in the Indian Ocean between Britain and France. In 1794 the British captured him and his brig Olivette when the British entered Mahé, Seychelles, capturing the colony. The now British colony retained Olivette for its government's purposes.

In June 1794 he married the 16-year old Mairie Corantine Olivette Jorre de St Jorre, daughter of a wealthy local merchant, shortly after he had started his privateering adventures.

In 1796 Hodoul went to sea again as an enseigne de vaisseau aboard the privateer Entreprise. Then he sailed aboard Général Pichegru, a recently captured British schooner previously named Hay, that Captain François Legars of Enterprise had given Jacques François Perroud. Hodoul sailed with Perroud to India. On 17 February 1797 Hodoul arrived at Port Louis with the British vessel Castor, of 150 tons (bm), which Perroud and Général Pichegru had captured in January at Visakhapatnam. She had a cargo of wheat and rice.

In May Hodoul received his first privateer command, Apollon, of ten guns and six obusiers. He sailed on 7 March with 71 men from Port-Louis for the Malabar Coast. There he captured the ship Eliza, of three masts and 350 tons (bm), herself a former French vessel. Six days later he rescued seven slaves aboard a British vessel whose crew had abandoned it after a storm. A few days later, on 17 May, near Masulipatnam, he captured Aydresev, a ship of about 500 tons, sailing under the Maharatta flag. She arrived at Port-Louis on 23 June. The captain of the prize crew, Harel, reported that on 3 May Hodoul had captured a British vessel bound for Tranquebar, then a Danish colony. He took Surprizes crew to the Seychelles from where Hodoul, in Success, took them to Mauritius; they arrived on 28 January 1800.

Hodoul next purchased Uni, a large vessel armed with eighteen 4-pounder and four 9-pounder guns. She had come from Nantes in 1798 and already had two cruises to her credit, both under the command of François-Thomas Le Même. Hodoul sailed on 15 May 1800 with a crew of 220 men. He reached the Seychelles on the 28th.

When the British first sighted Uni she had been in company with another ship, and a brig. Osborne set out after the ship, which turned out to be Friendship, and which he recaptured early that night. The brig escaped; she was the Bee, from Madras sailing to Masulipatnam. Hodoul had captured both Friendship and Bee that morning.

The British took their prizes to Madras, where they arrived on 17 August.

At his wife's behest, Hodoul employed the exiled Jacobin architect Antoine Jean-Baptise Le Franc to build Château Mammelles, which is now the oldest building in the Seychelles. The British Authorities later used Hodoul's second large house, Ma Constance, to house the exiled Sultan of Perak.

Fate Hodoul died at Mahé on 10 January 1835. He is interred at Bel Air Cemetery, and his tomb bears the inscription “Il fut juste.”

Legacy Today in the harbor of Victoria, there is a small islet named Hodoul Island in his honor. Legend has it that Hodoul's treasure is buried on Silhouette Island, northwest of Mahé.