Captured ship: La Catherine schooner of Martinique (master Pierre Boisseau, who died...

Captured ship: La Catherine schooner of Martinique (master Pierre Boisseau, who died at sea; and then Jacques Sanson).

History: French merchant ship (90 tons, 13 men) formerly La Cécile and New England-built, bound from Martinique to Bordeaux or Nantes, laden with sugar, coffee, cotton and logwood; taken on 23 February/6 March 1745 at 44º54 by the privateer Lowestoff (Charles Fielding commanding) and brought into Kinsale.

Documents:-

Court Papers:

• [CP 1]: request from John Hughes, commander of the Boyne privateer, to Fielding, to let David Hunter go as a passenger in La Catherine to Kinsale, 24 February 1745.
• [CP 2]: three examinations, commissioner's affidavit;
• [CP 2A]: allegation of Charles Fielding, April 1745;
• [CP 3-CP 5]: allegation of John Hughes on 7 May 1745 for the Boyne to be treated as joint captor, with additional articles and a copy of the signals to be observed by the privateers Lowestoff, Boyne and Shoreham, May 1745;
• [CP 6-CP 7]: affidavit with, as an exhibit, an allegation by John Wright (a mariner of the Boyne) before the Vice-Admiralty Court of Ireland putting La Catherine under arrest in a civil cause;
• [CP 8-CP 13]: six releases;
• [CP 14 -CP 19]: commission of September 1745 for the further examination of witnesses at Kinsale, still sewn together with copies of [CP 3-CP 5], and at [CP 18] a copy of an agreement between Fielding and Hughes, with special interrogatories, still sealed; all returned unexecuted in January 1746;
• [CP 20]: commission of September 1745 for the further examination of witnesses at Dublin;
• [CP 21-CP 22]: copies of [CP 3-CP 4] for Dublin;
• [CP 23]: appointment of a substitute proctor;
• [CP 24-CP 27] four releases in Dublin;
• [CP 28-CP 29]: two examinations taken in Dublin;
• [CP 30]: commsssioners' affidavit, Dublin, December 1745;
• [CP 31]: commission of March 1746 for the further examination of witnesses at Cork,
• [CP 32]: copies of an allegation made on 28 June 1745 by Hughes against Fielding, and copies of [CP 4-CP 5] and [CP 18];
• [CP 33]: personal answers of Charles Fielding to Hughes' allegation, at Cork, 24 March 1746;
• [CP 34]: commissioners' affidavit, Cork;
• [CP 35]: allegation June 1746;
• [CP 36-CP 41]: six releases, 1746;
• [CP 42-CP 43]: two sets of special interrogatores, undated;
• [CP 44]: note of interrogatories for Yves Lescaut [pilot of the captured ship], undated;
• [CP 45-CP 47]: two attestations as to papers, with wrapper (addressed to the managers of the Lowestoff at the Union Coffee House, Cornhill, London);
• [CP 48]: abstract and translation of the 21 ship's papers.

Ship's Papers, numbered SP 1-SP 21.

[Decision: condemned as prize to Fielding, with reservation as to the rights of the Boyne, 29 April 1745]

See the 31 examinations in HCA 13/90