British New York Vice-Admiralty Court. Captured ship: America (master Benjamin Earle)....

British New York Vice-Admiralty Court.

Captured ship: America (master Benjamin Earle).

Capture history: an American merchant ship (sloop, 54 tons, 10 men including 8 Americans) bound from Cap François, Saint Domingue to Alexandria, Virginia, laden with rum, molasses, sugar, coffee, salt and dry goods (hats, cottons, osnabrucks, hyson tea etc); taken on 15 December 1778 in latitude 36°N by the loyalist privateer Gambier (James Crew commanding), and brought into New York.

Intended voyage: from the Caribbean Islands to the United States.

Court papers numbered CP 1-4:-

• [CP 1]: libel in Crew v The sloop America and her cargo, 21 December 1778;
• [CP 2]: monition, 21 December 1778;
• [CP 3]: deposition of Peter Guion, 22 December 1778;
• [CP 4]: affidavit of papers brought in by the prize master Lieutenant Joseph Bishop, 29 December 1778.

[Decision: condemned, if no response to the monition by 11 January 1779]

Ship's Papers numbered SP 1-11 (Virginia papers):-

• SP 1-SP 3: official ship's papers;
• SP 4-SP 9: master's trading papers: accounts for sale of tobacco, orders etc, Messrs Delaire & Colston, at Cap Francois, November 1778;
• SP 10-SP 11: mail in transit: letters from Delaire & Colston to William Carr merchant and M Ponet, ship's captain, at Dumfries, on Quantico Creek, Virginia.

[Papers previously wrongly identified as Court papers: 1-4; Ship's papers: 5-15 (large pencil numbers): sorted and renumbered in 2024].

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