Joseph Bernard de CHABERT: [ Manuscript original AUTOGRAPH report] -Detailed Report to the French Admiralty about THE SITUATION IN THE AEGEAN SEA AND THE PIRACY. Kimolos (Argentiere in French, Aegean sea) 4 June 1771 Manuscript autograph original report of 4 Folio pages, 32x21cm each page, all pages fully written,approx. 150 lines with dense writing, easily readable, signed and dated.Very good condition, loose as presented.The historical context of this mission: on 2 April 1771,Commander Chabert was given command of the French frigate Mignonne to conduct a special cruise to test a newly constructed marine chronometer made by Berthoud.It was a high value mission. Chabert who wanted to continue his chartering project of the eastern Mediterranean took the opportunity and sailed to the Aegean. It was a historical trip.The early marine chronometers were an invaluable help for the calculation of the position of the ship at sea, but they were still far from perfect.To conduct a valuable chartering, mariners ought to calculate astronomically (by moon distance) or by marine chronometer their position.Both methods had problems and required expensive material and special knowledge, accurate chartering was impossible by an ordinary, even experienced, mariner. Chabert had astronomical knowledge and the new chronometer gave him the possibility to conduct the first scientifically accurate measurements and chartering in the Greek seas during this mission.The fine nautical chart which resulted from this mission,the very first accurate chart of the Cyclades and southern Aegean, was published years later (Zacharakis 910). But the mission had unexpected meetings in the Aegean. Chabert sent an immediate report to his superior,the French Minister of Marine, about the situation which was found in the Aegean.The manuscript report had been written on board the frigate Mignonne (as clearly stated on the paper), 4th of June 1771, at the bay of Kimolos and presents facts that occurred during May 1771 in southern Aegean. According to Chabert (as reported), the French frigate operated near the nearby deserted then island of Folegandros chartering and had located a small ship,with Venetian flag, to move suspiciously.Chabert tried to check the small ship,but it evaded then while approaching the coast where the big frigate could not approach.A second lighter French ship arrived that moment from the other direction (French had an unofficial naval base in Milos during the 18th /early 19th centuries ) and finally they achieved to immobilized the suspected ship.The captain of this ship was Giannis Karapatas (grand father of the hero of the Revolution who has been executed in Tripoli in 1821) and the crew was heavily armed.The Greeks presented a story that they came from the Venetian Zakynthos and went for fishing around Milos and up to the Russian naval base then in Paros (during 1771 Aegean was a theater of war between Russians, who had crushed the previous year the Turkish fleet at Cesme, and the Turks).Russians had a naval base in Naoussa, Paros. The neutral French operated marine chartering,and probably espionage and supply of the defeated Turks, all around. Chabert found that the Greek ship had suspect papers and more crew than needed and put them all in arrest.In the long report,addressed to France, Chabert described in details the events,the capturing of the ship, the following investigation,during which information from the Turkish held port of Nafplio arrived, his intentions to confiscate the ship and to return some people of its crew to Zakynthos and some other,from the Morea, to the Turks in Nafplio, his hesitations about the fate of the crew at the hands of the Turks, the arrival of a Greek dragoman in the service of French from the Morea which resulted in a new detailed interrogation in Greek of the crew which revealed that the ship was much more heavily armed before his capture and was most probably running for piracy in the southern Aegean and many more details about the conditions in the area. Chabert informed finally his superior that due to the actual situation (of widespread piracy and insecurity ), he was obliged to postpone some time his main objective (to make secret marine observations with the new chronometer and the planned chartering ) and had decided to escort a French cargo ship loaded up to the port of Nafplio (so it could avoid all potential dangers, and the Greek pirates and the Russians frigates ). A unique detailed presentation of the conditions of sailing in southern Aegean during the early 1770s. In addition to a fascinated concrete unrecorded story, the report contains invaluable information of a much wider interest matters, including shipping, trading, chartering in the Aegean, the local implication of many foreign powers, in the middle of a war in the Aegean and from the manning of the 18th century Greek shipping to the jurisdiction of the acts ( or the planned acts) at sea during that time. This report cover an amazing number of matters.Very few original manuscript reports with substantial content from the Aegean, written in the Aegean during 18th century, exist. Unique and unrecorded manuscript account of the outmost important historical value