Folios 615-616: Benjamin Carter, Regulating Captain, Liverpool. Response to a request...

Folios 615-616: Benjamin Carter, Regulating Captain, Liverpool. Response to a request to state the case of 7 men and the grounds for them being imprest. Outlines instances of pressed men using the privilege of Protection as American Citizens when they are clearly not. He advises that Captain Woolley, who is requesting their discharge, may have mislead their Lordships. In his request for discharge he states that six of the seven men are Landsman, but they have used the sea for three to ten years. Reports that numerous false American Protections are rife in the town and that there is a market in selling these. He has secured an American Gazateer that he finds useful in ascertaining if the men impressed are in fact natives of America as he questions them on their homeland. Reports on several cases who used these Protections at Plymouth and were taken at face value only for him to ascertain they are in fact false. George R Phillips was put forward as an Able Seaman substitute at Lieutenant James Hamilton Clarke's Rendezvous on 2 October 1809 and received thirty guineas, he was drafted into the Concord Tender but escaped with other mutineers at Durgaroon. He was impressed again by Lieutenant Evans on the 26 October 1809 and sent to Plymouth, where he was discharged for being an America, when earlier the American Consul had disclaimed him as being an American native. Another case to support his supposition is George Grimes Carr, who was impressed by Lieutenant James Hamilton Clarke on 14 August 1809. An intercepted letter proved he was an Irishman, however their Lordships directed his discharge on finding 2 substitutes. One of these substitutes was sent to Plymouth, where he was subsequently discharged having an American Protection.