#Naval gazer trial

He appears there as an enigmatic figure whose life and work were sometimes referenced but rarely critically examined. Today, memory of Bottineau survives only because the Frenchman became a bit-part player in the scientific literature of the early 19th century. For Bottineau claimed to be the inventor of a whole new “science”-famous then, forgotten now-that he called nauscopie: “the art of discovering ships and land at a great distance.”

#Naval gazer trial

They were, rather, the product of rigorous observation and of years of trial and error. These predictions, he insisted, were the products of neither sorcery nor good luck. Sir David Brewster, author of Letters on Natural Magic. And Bottineau was chiefly renowned in Mauritius (or “Île de France,” to give it its contemporary French name) as a man who won a lot of bets in waterfront taverns thanks to his uncanny ability to foresee the arrival of ships that were anywhere from 350 to 700 miles from the island when he announced their approach. The governor had his information not from signals made by ships sailing far offshore, nor from land-based lookouts armed with high-powered telescopes, but from a minor member of the local engineering corps, one Étienne Bottineau. A few days later, when the sloop returns, the governor gets confirmation: the ships were actually East Indiamen, British merchant vessels making for Fort William in India.Īll this is remarkable chiefly for the source of De Souillac’s intelligence. De Souillac is informed that the fleet has altered course and is now steering away from Mauritius.

But before the vessel can report, the panic ends. Fearing that this is the long-awaited invasion fleet, De Souillac orders a sloop-of-war out to reconnoiter. The governor, Viscomte François de Souillac, has been warned that a flotilla of 11 ships is approaching his island. The French Indian Ocean colony-highly vulnerable to British attack at the height of the American Revolutionary War-is in a state of alert.