High Court of Admiralty. Captured ship: Aimable Constance of Marseilles formerly...

High Court of Admiralty.

Captured ship: Aimable Constance of Marseilles formerly L'Europe (master Pascal Antoine).

History: a French merchant ship with a letter of marque (corvette, 150 tons, 10 guns, 23 men and 4 passengers) bound from Cap François, Saint Domingue to Marseilles, laden with sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo and tortoise shell; taken on 12 or 13 August 1780 in latitude 32°N, longitude 65° W of Paris by the privateer Kitty (Samuel Clough commanding), and brought first into Kinsale, Ireland (10 to 17 September), and then into Liverpool.

Court papers numbered CP 1-6:-

• [CP 1]: attestation as to papers (numbered 1-56) brought in by Clough, at Liverpool, 21 September 1781;
• [CP 2]: standing interrogatories, three depositions of Pascal Antoine, Dominique Simian and François Fidelle Mario Patot or Palot, and commissioners' affidavit, 21 September 1781;
• [CP 3]: attestation as to the perishing nature of the cargo: the ship was damaged in a storm on her passage from Kinsale to Liverpool, when the cargo was damaged by the influx of water, so a commission of unlivery is needed to preserve the cargo, 21 September 1781;
• [CP 4]: attestation as to papers (numbered 1-2 [now SP A1 and SP A2]) by Pascal Antoine, being two bills of lading in his pocket book [which was not confiscated], 22 September 1781;
• [CP 5]: translations of ship's papers 1-56, 2 October 1781;
• [CP 6]: translations of the further ship's papers produced by Antoine, 8 October 1781.

Ship's Papers numbered SP 1-56, SP A1-SP A2:-

• SP 1-SP 9: official ship's papers and business papers;
• SP 3: muster roll;
• SP 10-SP 55: bills of lading;
• SP 56: overview of cargo;
• SP A1-SP A2: bills of lading.

[Papers previously wrongly identified as Court papers: 1-48; Ship's papers: 49-106 (large pencil numbers): sorted and renumbered in 2024].