Pierre Douville

Ship-of-the-line Captain Pierre Douville (August 7, 1745 – July 17, 1794) was a French naval officer who served in the American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary Wars. Born on present day Prince Edward Island, Douville was deported to France in 1758 as part of the expulsion of the Acadians. He joined the French Navy and lived in Rhode Island during the American Revolutionary War. During the Revolutionary War, he served as a French military intelligence officer who provided General George Washington with British ship and troop movements. Douville also took part in a smuggling mission in 1775, when he brought weapons and gunpowder from the French West Indies to the United States. Douville was one of the original members of the Society of the Cincinnati. Douville died in 1794 after being captured by the British at the Glorious First of June.

Early life

Pierre Douville was born on August 7, 1745, in the French colonial village of Havre-Saint-Pierre, otherwise known as St. Peter's, on St. John Islant, present day Prince Edward Island. He was the youngest son and the tenth child of François Douville and Mary Roger. Originally from Normandy, François was shipwrecked on the island in 1719, "farther to the east [from where Havre-Saint-Pierre would be settled], at Naufrage." In a 1752 census, François was one of the wealthiest inhabitants on the island, working as a "fisherman, navigator, and ploughman or farmer." By 1763, the French and Indian War had ended. Even though France had ceded all of New France to Britain and Spain, the British returned Saint Pierre and Miquelon to the French. Douville's plan, Cooke explained, was to voyage to Bayonne, France, "where he is well acquainted, and there take in a load of [gun]powder" onto his ship. He recommended that the operation happen now "and return upon this Coast in the Winter," because "the Enemy's Ships are unable to cruise" at that point.

On November 15, 1775, Nicholas Brown sent a letter to Charles Jovett, a shipowner and acquaintance of Douville's. The letter requested Jovett should take a "load of good merchtb codfish delivered [to Providence, Rhode Island] between this and the first of March... But above all that Most Wanting is Cannon and Pistle Powder." However, an "English Captn with a Boats Crew came on shore for Assistance to land his Goods, soon after the French Capt who was on Board-saw a small Sloop to Leward beating up to him, 'tis supposed he thot them friends" and the 'French Capt' "immediately weigh'd anchor."

Naval career

In 1776, Douville was commissioned into the Continental Navy at the rank of lieutenant, serving on the 24-gun frigate USS Alfred as her third lieutenant; he was promoted to second lieutenant in 1777. Douville was soon released by the British at the insistence of French Captain Louis-René Levassor de Latouche Tréville. He and several other Continental Navy officers were released in mid-July. When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, Douville returned to Rhode Island to be with his family.

Postwar career

On October 5, 1784, Douville became a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, an award given to those "who had distinguished themselves" during the Revolutionary War. They had five children; Pierre in 1781, Cynthia in 1783, Lowrey Charles in 1786, Samuel Joseph in 1788, and Mary in 1789. When Douville died, Cynthia Aborn received a pension from the French government until her death in October 1806. One of Douville's descendants was the actor Charles Coburn, an American film actor known for his role in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Brown University has a painting of Douville. The painter is unknown, but it was completed in France before Douville's death. It was given to Brown University in 1887 by Douville's granddaughters, Miss Cynthia Douville and Mrs. Sarah A. Tinkham.