The official report of an incident involving two American sailors at Villefranche-sur-Mer in the winter of 1854. A short train ride from Nice, a visit to picturesque Villefranche-sur-Mer would’ve been an obvious attraction for American sailors on the third Mediterranean cruise of the USS Cumberland.
Even by nineteenth-century standards the cruise was a long one, 1852-1855, and it comes as little surprise that there were incidents on shore such as this one involving sailors Michael Morris and Alfred McGay.
Addressed to Commodore Andrew Harwood, the official report from the American Consulate reads: “last night the agents of the public safety have collected almost dead, in the middle of the Street, at two o’clock [two] mariners … of the Cumberland, which had knocked themselves down in boxing, and Whom the police-men here conducted to the hospital where they were carefully kept till this morning until they [fled]. Informed of this circumstance … I have instantly taken the necessary measures in order to apprehend again these two men, Which Were in a very pitoyable [sic] State … I do not lose time to send them back on your board … they Shall go on foot, if their state of mutilation permits, or I order to take a Carriage to transport them.”
Moris and McGay weren’t the only two sailors from HMS Cumberland causing a stir. Borelly adds, “I direct also, by the same opportunity, the negro Sea Man James Mc. Gy. Connelly a deserter, Whom the officer who comed from your parts yesterday and caused by my intervention to be arrested and put in [gaol].”
Appended to this is a note from the hospital addressed to the First Officer, asking for compensation in return for the care given to Michael Morris and Alfred McGay. “We give all the night assistance and keep the whatch [sic]. In the morning of the Saturday these two sailors making terrible noise for gone away, would not remain in the Ospital and escape away. If you are so kind for us to make have some ricompensasion for these affair.”
If an Italian influence can be heard in these two documents, it’s worth noting that the area was then controlled by Sardinia.
USS Cumberland had previously seen action in the Mexican-American War and would later serve in the African Squadron before being sunk by the Confederate Ironclad UCS Virginia on 8 March, 1862.
