Vice Admiral Pierre César Charles Guillaume, Marquis de Sercey, born at the Château du Jeu, La Comelle on 26 April 1753 and died in Paris, 1st arrondissement on 10 August 1836, was a French naval officer and politician. He is best known for his service in the American Revolutionary War, his role in Saint-Domingue and the Mascarene Islands, and for commanding the French naval forces in the Indian Ocean from 1796 to 1800.
Early life
Coming from old Burgundian nobility, he lost his father Jean-Jacques, Marquis de Sercey, captain of the , at the age of five. His family moved to Paris, and at thirteen he obtained permission from his mother Marie-Madeleine du Crest, shortly before her death, to join the Royal Navy, inspired by the exploits of a brother who had distinguished himself during the boarding of an English ship. Now an orphan, he embarked in 1766 as a volunteer on the frigate Légère, leaving Brest for a nine-month campaign in the Windward Islands. Back in France, he embarked in Lorient on the corvette Heure-du-Berger for a twenty-seven month campaign in the Indian Ocean, at the end of which in 1770 he obtained the rank of garde-marine, sealing his engagement in the French Navy.
Disembarking at the Isle de France, he immediately went on to serve on the frigate Ambulante for a new two-year campaign in the Indian Ocean. In 1772, he joined the explorer Yves Joseph de Kerguelen, then in Port-Louis, in his first campaign of discovery of the southern Indian Ocean. He served on the fluyt Gros Ventre, as Louis Aleno de Saint-Aloüarn's second-in-command, and thus took part in the discovery of the Kerguelen Islands. Separated from the expedition's lead ship, the frigate Fortune, by a storm, Gros Ventre was considered lost and Kerguelen returned to France, claiming to King Louis XV to have discovered a new southern continent and obtaining the means for a new expedition. Gros Ventre instead continued its initial mission, heading towards Australia, the contours of which were still poorly understood. After a difficult voyage, Shark Bay in Western Australia was reached and Saint-Aloüarn took possession of it in the name of the King of France on 30 March 1772. A few months later, Sercey joined the second Kerguelen expedition on the Isle de France and served on board the frigate Oiseau, this time participating in the more detailed reconnaissance of the Kerguelen, until 1774.
After this thirty-two month voyage, he returned to France and received a gratuity from King Louis XVI. In 1775, he served on the Amphitrite in the West Indies, more particularly around Saint-Domingue, under the command of the Comte de Grasse, then served on the famous Boudeuse, attached to the station of the Leeward Islands, until 1778.
American Revolutionary War
Sercey returned to France in June 1778, as tensions with Great Britain ran high because of French support for American revolutionaries in the American War of Independence. On 17 June, hostilities officially began after the French frigate Belle Poule clashed with the British frigate HMS Arethusa in the Channel. Sent to rescue the Belle Poule damaged in this victorious battle, with a hundred sailors, it was the Marquis de Sercey who led the ship from Plouescat Bay to Brest, in sight of the enemy, as its commander the Seigneur de la Clocheterie had been wounded during the confrontation. He remained on this ship, becoming its second-in-command and then its temporary commander. Assigned to a naval division under the orders of Comte de Tréville, he served for seven months in the Atlantic Ocean, capturing three ships. He reached the rank of ensign in May 1779 and served successively on the Triton, the Couronne, the Ville de Paris, and then on the frigate Concorde, before being given command of the cutter Sans-Pareil, a British privateer ship, the Non Such, captured by Concorde and renamed. Placed under the command of the Comte de Guichen, he was sent to scout the Windward Islands with a small squadron, but was ambushed by eight privateers, an encounter from which he escaped with difficulty. He rejoined the Comte de Guichen for the battle of Martinique in April 1780, then, in charge of carrying missives to Saint-Domingue, he found himself upon a British naval division at night and was taken prisoner by HMS Phoenix on 26 June 1780.