Jean-Marie Dayot

Jean Baptiste Marie Dayot (Vietnamese name: Nguyễn Văn Trí / 阮文智, 1759–1809)[1] was a French Navy officer and an adventurer who went into the service of Nguyễn Ánh, the future emperor Gia Long of Vietnam.

Jean-Marie Dayot
Jean-Marie Dayot (left) and his brother Félix Dayot (right).
Born1759
Port Louis, Ile Maurice, France
Died1809
Tonkin Gulf, Vietnam
Allegiance France
Vietnam
Service/branchFrench Navy
Vietnamese Navy
RankAdmiral of the Fleet of Cochinchina and Commandant des bâtiments français de l'Anam
Battles/warsQui Nhơn, 1792

Originally from a Brittany family settled in Ile Bourbon, Jean-Marie Dayot was born in Port Louis, Ile Maurice. He became a Lieutenant de vaisseau auxiliaire in the French Royal Navy.[2] He met with Pigneau de Béhaine either in the Île Bourbon or Pondicherry, and is thought to have commanded one of the two commercial ships which accompanied the warship Méduse with Pigneau de Behaine to Vietnam.[2]

Entering the service of Nguyễn Ánh, by 1790 he was in command of a naval division composed of two European warships belonging to Nguyễn Ánh. In 1792, he fought in the naval battle against the Tây Sơn in front of Qui Nhơn, sinking 5 warships, 90 galleys and about 100 smaller boats. In 1793, against at Qui Nhơn, he captured 60 Tây Sơn galleys.[2]

Jean-Marie Dayot also did considerable hydrographic work, making numerous maps of the Vietnamese coast, which were drawn by his talented brother.[3]

In 1795, Jean-Marie Dayot stranded his ship, was condemned for negligence and put to the cangue. Disgusted, he left Cochinchina.[2][4]

Jean-Marie Dayot then settled in Manila, from where he traded with Mexico. He died in 1809 when his ship sank in the Gulf of Tonkin. His brother would die in Macao in 1821.

Notes
  1. Salles, p.199
  2. Mantienne, p.154
  3. Mantienne, p.156
  4. Contradictory with the version of Georges Taboulet in La geste française en Indochine : 1615-1857 according to which Dayot left Cochinchina because some mandarins had been executed by Gia Long.

References
  • Mantienne, Frédéric 1999 Monseigneur Pigneau de Béhaine, Editions Eglises d'Asie, 128 Rue du Bac, Paris, ISSN 1275-6865 ISBN 2-914402-20-1
  • Salles, André 2006 Un Mandarin Breton au service du roi de Cochinchine, Les Portes du Large ISBN 2-914612-01-X
Map of Saigon, by Jean-Marie Dayot (1795).
Harbour of Qui Nhơn by Jean-Marie Dayot (1795).
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