Captured ship: Le Benjamin (master Louis Regnaud or Reynaud; later James Andrew Boureau,...

Captured ship: Le Benjamin (master Louis Regnaud or Reynaud; later James Andrew Boureau, Regnaud being killed in the action).

History: a French merchant ship with a letter of marque (160 tons, 36 men), bound from Saint Domingue to La Rochelle via Havana, laden with sugar, indigo and cotton; taken in fight, after firing about 30 shots, on 2/13 December 1744 by the privateer Tryall of Bristol (William Woods commanding), and taken into Kinsale.

Le Benjamin was a slave trader engaged in the triangle trade, and was captured on the return leg of her voyage: La Rochelle - West Africa - Saint Domingue - La Rochelle.

Documents:-

Court Papers:

• [CP 1] three examinations with commissioner's affidavit;
• [CP 2] allegation;
• [CP 3 - CP 4] two attestations of papers;
• [CP 5] prize master's attestation about leaky ship and damaged cargo;
• [CP 6] letter from Daniel Furzer, naval officer at Kinsale, asking how to send the Benjamin's letters and papers to the court;
• [CP 7] translation and abstract of the ship's papers in Bundle A.

Ship's Papers:

• Bundle A: numbered A1-A28 ;
• Bundle B: numbered B1-B35 ;
• Bundle C: numbered C1-C83 (C48 and C50 are not ship's papers but items of mail-in-transit) ;
• Bundle D: numbered D1-D74 ;
• Bundle E: numbered E1-E42 (E21-E42 are inventories of possessions, death certificates and associated documents relating to crewmen who died on board Le Benjamin) ;
• Note: there are a few more ship's papers at the end of bundles M, N and P.

Master's Archive:

• Bundle F: now numbered F1-F39: letters received by Louis Regnaud, master of Le Benjamin.

Mail-in-Transit: (see also C48 and C50). Nearly all in French from Saint Domingue dated July and August 1744, except a few in French and Spanish from Havana dated late September and early October:

• [Bundle FF]: now numbered FF1-FF6A (FF5 is a sales account of people sold as slaves from Le Benjamin in October 1743);
• Bundle G: now numbered G1-G26A ;
• Bundle H: now numbered H1-H34 ;
• Bundle J: now numbered J1-J54 ;
• Bundle K: now numbered K1-K47 ;
• Bundle L: now numbered L1-L42 ;
• Bundle M: now numbered M1-M38 (M37 and M38 are probably ship's papers, not mail-in-transit) ;
• Bundle N: now numbered N1-N38 (N37 may be ship's papers, not mail-in-transit) ;
• Bundle O: numbered O1-O26 ;
• Bundle P: now numbered P1-P14 (P1 is an envelope addressed to the Comte de Maurepas, in which P2-P12 may have been enclosed. P2-P11 are written in Spanish from Havana, P12 is a covering letter in French from Havana. P13 and P14 are ship's papers, not mail-in-transit, but on the back of P14 is the court's description of Bundle P).

[Decision: condemned as prize 15 February 1745]