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British New York Vice-Admiralty Court. Captured ship: Aurora (master Wollman Sutton)....
Catalogue reference: HCA 32/275/1
What’s it about?
This record is about the British New York Vice-Admiralty Court. Captured ship: Aurora (master Wollman Sutton).... dating from 1780 May 27 in the series High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Prize Papers. It is held at The National Archives, Kew.
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Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- HCA 32/275/1
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1780 May 27
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Description (What the record is about)
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British New York Vice-Admiralty Court.
Captured ship: Aurora (master Wollman Sutton).
Capture history: an American merchant ship with a letter of marque (150 tons or 240 tons, 20 guns, 65 men, mainly Americans) bound from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (on or after 20 May 1780) to St Eustatius, laden with tobacco, staves and bar iron; taken on 27 May 1780 in latitude 38°50'N, longitude 75°W, near Cape Henlopen, by HMS Iris (James Hawker commanding), and brought into New York.
Intended voyage: from the United States to the Caribbean Islands.
Court papers numbered CP 1-4:-
- [CP 1]: affidavit of papers brought in by the prize master Lieutenant James Jack, 31 May 1780;
- [CP 2]: Advocate General on behalf of Hawker v The privateer Aurora, 31 May 1780;
- [CP 3]: deposition of Wollman Sutton, 1 June 1780;
- [CP 4]: monition, 31 May 1780.
[Decision: condemned, if no response to the monition by 20 June 1780].
Ship's Papers numbered SP 1-28 (Pennsylvania papers):-
- SP 1: privateer's commission, 13 May 1780;
- SP 2-SP 24: bills of lading;
- SP 25: cargo manifest;
- SP 26-SP 28: official ship's papers.
The capture of the Aurora by HMS Iris was described by Philip Freneau in his poem The British Prison Ship, published in the autumn of 1780. Freneau's presence on the Aurora cannot be proved by the papers here, as no muster is included. Hawker did not claim that the Aurora was taken in fight; but Sutton deposed that the Aurora fired several shot, and gave the date of capture as on or about 26 May. Examination of the log of HMS Iris for 27 May shows that after a 4 hour chase the Iris fired 7 shots, the Aurora also firing, before surrendering in the evening [ADM 51/482]. The muster of HMS Iris names the prisoners taken on board (including a Philip Perno, but these were only about 2/3 of the crew of the Aurora, and records their discharge to prison ships [ADM 36/10046]. See Mary Weatherspoon Bowden, “In Search of Freneau’s Prison Ships”, Early American Literature, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Fall, 1979), 174.
[Papers previously wrongly identified as Court papers: 1-4; Ship's papers: 5-32 (large pencil numbers): sorted and renumbered in 2024].
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Former department reference (Former identifier given by the originating creator)
- HCA 32/275/1/1-32
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
- English
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Closure status (Whether the record is ‘open’ (available to the public) or ‘closed’ (not available due to a legal exemption))
- Open Document, Open Description
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Publication note(s) (A note of publications related to the record)
- Discussed in Edwin G Burrows, Forgotten Patriots, (New York, 2008), pp168-175
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C13504965/
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Series information
HCA 32
High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Prize Papers
See the series level description for more information about this record.
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
109,109 records
Within the department: HCA
Records of the High Court of Admiralty and colonial Vice-Admiralty courts
37,247 records
Within the series: HCA 32
High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Prize Papers
8 records
Within the piece: HCA 32/275
Captured ships with names beginning with A. (Described at item level)
You are currently looking at the item: HCA 32/275/1
British New York Vice-Admiralty Court. Captured ship: Aurora (master Wollman Sutton)....
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