MARINE. Manuscript, Sur les voyages au long cours, au grand et au petit cabotage, [Nantes] February 13, 1809; small 10-page folio notebook, columnar with marginal annotations. Study on long and short sea shipping. In principle, grand cabotage applied to European coasts and petit cabotage to French coasts, with long-haul expeditions referring solely to transatlantic or transoceanic voyages. But when the French Empire reached its apogee (it included 130 departments in 1811), these notions had to be redefined. The present manuscript is in two parts: the right-hand column contains an analysis of the legislative texts in force at the time (ordinance of October 18, 1740, article 377 of the Code de Commerce), followed by proposals relating to grand and petit cabotage. The left-hand column contains the observations of commissaire principal Giraud, maritime chief of the port and district of Nantes."Long-haul voyages are deemed to be those made to the East Indies, the Pacific Sea, Canada, Newfoundland, Greenland and the other coasts and islands of southern and northern America, the Azores, the Canaries, Madeira and all other coasts and countries located on the ocean beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and Sund [...]. [...] It is very necessary, from this moment, that the limits of the large & small cabotage be determined to fix the administrators of the navy in the delivery of the roles of crew & the examiners for the admission of the masters & bosses"... Etc.We enclose another manuscript of the same study (without comments, 10p. in-fol. in a notebook bound with a blue ribbon); and 3 documents on the same subject (the 1st handwritten, the other two autographed): Extract from the Recueil general des lois et des arrets de la Cour de Cassation (1826, 2p.), concerning a voyage from Rouen to St. Petersburg, which is not considered to be ocean-going; circular on ocean voyages in the Baltic or Mediterranean, October 25, 1827 (3p.); Ordonnance du Roi sur le cabotage, November 25, 1827 (2p. in-fol.).