You’ve done a very nice job, arashi, and I had fun reading the article. I have lots of suggestions, but if it weren’t pretty good already, it wouldn’t be worth any additional changes. I thought about sending you a PM with all my nitpickings, but decided to post them in the hope of encouraging conversation.
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I think it is significant that the Collins family didn’t just run a shipping fleet; they also built ships, and had a contract to build ships for the government at a time when the US Navy was still quite small.
If you are going to mention Naomi’s boredom and drinking, then I think it’s worth mentioning that Abigail ran the household, which was one cause of Naomi’s boredom.
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I would refer to Josette as Mademoiselle Josette Dupres or Mlle Josette Dupres, not Ms. Or, if you want to keep it English, Miss Josette Dupres.
"After leaving Martinique, Barnabas and Josette..." Seems to me that's suggesting that they left Martinique together, though of course that is belied by the rest of the sentence. But maybe you could say, "After Barnabas left Martinique, he and Josette..."
Correspondence – not correspondance.
My impression (but it’s always hard to say) is that Barnabas was already in love (passionately or otherwise) with Josette when he had his affair with Angelique.
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Angelique’s initial plan did not involve having Jeremiah fall in love with Josette. Her plan was for Josette to behave disgracefully towards Jeremiah, and for Jeremiah, appalled, to tell Barnabas. It was only when Jeremiah refrained from telling Barnabas about Josette's disgraceful behavior that Angelique decided to have Jeremiah engage in some disgraceful behavior himself. This matters to me because it says something about the good intentions of Jeremiah and Josette (neither of them wanted to hurt Barnabas) but you may not think it worth mentioning.
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Was it because Jeremiah and Josette went beyond Angelique's reach that the spell failed, or was it that Angelique couldn't be bothered to keep it up once it accomplished her purpose?
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This is a pain to include in your article, but I think it is significant that the Old House, which Naomi owned and which she was therefore able to give to Barnabas, wasn't just any old house but was the house in which the Collinses had all been living until not long before Barnabas’s marriage.
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I don’t think Barnabas had any suspicion that Angelique was a witch until he heard her casting a spell.
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Confusion between tenses indicates that this is a rougher draft than what comes before, so I’ll leave it alone.
I’m looking forward to seeing more!