High Court of Admiralty. Captured ship: Ann (master Francis Robins). Capture history:...

High Court of Admiralty.

Captured ship: Ann (master Francis Robins).

Capture history: an American merchant ship (brigantine, 130 tons, 8 men, formerly the Scottish ship Jean of Irwin, bound from Cork, Ireland to Boston, Massachusetts, taken by the American privateer Hancock (commander Tucker) on 7 May 1776), now bound from Baltimore, Maryland to Nantes, laden with tobacco, flour and staves; taken in late April 1777 in latitude 36°32'N, about 8 leagues S of Cape Henry, Virginia by HMS Emerald (Benjamin Caldwell commanding), and brought first into New York and then into the River Thames.

Intended voyage: from the United States to France.

Court papers numbered CP 1-9:-

• [CP 1]: attestation of papers (numbered 1-9) by Benjamin Caldwell deposed before David Mathews, mayor of New York, two small invoices for 23 barrels of flour (taken for the use of HMS Emerald) having been removed; the prize now being sent in for London under the prize master William Caldwell, 22 May 1777, and Matthews' certification of the same;
• [CP 2]: attestation as to papers sworn in London, 2 July 1777;
• [CP 3]: deposition of Francis Robins of Boston, Massachusetts;
• [CP 4]: claim and attestation of John Ingram on behalf of John Buchanan the Younger & Co of Greenock for the brigantine Jean (master James Falton);
• [CP 5]: attestation of William Caldwell that the prize was boarded off Portsmouth by a tender of HMS Ardent, who impressed John White mariner of the Ann, who had been sent to London with Robins to depose, 26 July 1777;
• [CP 6]: attestation of James Fulton as to the capture of the Jean, 28 July 1777;
• [CP 7]: allegation, 29 July 1777;
• [CP 8]: commission of appraisement, 29 July 1777;
• [CP 9]: appraisement of the value of the ship, at £250.

Ship's Papers numbered SP 1-9:-

• SP 1-SP 6: ship's business papers;
• SP 7: crew list and agreement;
• SP 8-SP 9: ship's business papers.

[Papers previously wrongly identified as Court papers: 1-7; Ship's papers: 8-20 (large pencil numbers): sorted and renumbered in 2024].

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