Captured ship: Elizabeth or Isabelle of Bordeaux (master Pierre Boutin, passenger...

Captured ship: Elizabeth or Isabelle of Bordeaux (master Pierre Boutin, passenger and [owner] James Fanning), previously the Elizabeth of Waterford (master James Aheren, passenger and owner James Fanning).

History: an Irish ship Elizabeth of Waterford (a brigantine, 80 tons), bound on 9 April 1742 from Waterford to Newfoundland with 82 passengers, taken on 22 April 1742 off Old Kinsale by the Spanish privateer La Sacra Familia otherwise El Peregrino of San Sebastian (Don Louis Soleil commanding) and brought into San Sebastian, where she was condemned and bought at auction on behalf of her former owner James Fanning of Waterford by Messrs John and Philip Meagher (Irishmen resident in San Sebastian) and a Frenchman Raymond Digeaux of Bordeaux (with the help of James Bradshaw of Bordeaux); then, when bound from San Sebastian to Waterford or Dunkirk, laden with French goods imported into Spain from Bayonne, namely wine, brandy, Portuguese salt, saddles and bridles etc but only intending to land Fanning and then to take his orders to trade elsewhere, not in Ireland; taken on 25 August/5 September 1742 as an enemy by the privateer Bessborough (Luke Mercer commanding) and brought first into Crookhaven, and then into Kinsale.

Documents:-

Court Papers:

• [CP 1-CP 4]: standing and additional interrogatories, three examinations taken at Kinsale with the commissioners' affidavit [one document], postal wrapper, and docket, brought into court November 1742;
• [CP 5-CP 6]: attestation and claim by Messrs Francis Dillon and Francis Cruise merchants of London, on behalf of James Fanning as owner, December 1742;
• [CP 7]: detailed allegation by James Fanning, referring to 13 papers submitted as exhibits; December 1742;
• [CP 8 and CP 8/1-CP 8/14]: docket, with 13 letters and papers submitted as exhibits by Fanning comprising letters by Fanning from before and after the original voyage and by Aheren (describing the capture, and the taking of the privateer by HMS Bideford), and other papers; with [CP 8/14] a translation of the Spanish texts of [CP 8/6] and [CP 8/7], January 1743;
• [CP 9-CP 10]: appraisement of the ship and cargo taken at Kinsale, and commission so to do, March-April 1743;
• [CP 11-CP 13]: in reverse order, commission to examine Luke Mercer, captain of the privateer Bessborough, on the allegation of Fanning, with Mercer's examination and a copy of the allegation: Mercer alleged the original capture was false and that the original voyage was always intended to go to France or Spain to supply the regiments there with provisions and passengers [as recruits];
• [CP 14-CP 18]: commission rogatoire for examinations to be taken at Bordeaux, with interrogatories on behalf of both Fanning and Mercer, and translations into French;
• [CP 19-CP 22]: letters and papers from 1742 produced as exhibits, with court nos 5, 10, 14 and 16 [from bundle SP A];
• [CP 23-CP 25]: three letters received from Bordeaux by Messrs Dillon and Cruise, September 1742 [NS] and produced as exhibits by them, numbered 10, 11 and 12, ;
• [CP 26-CP 29]: process in the Admiralty of Guyenne;
• [CP 30-CP 31]: examinations taken on 31 May/11 June 1743 at Bordeaux, with a translation;
• [CP 32-CP 37]: process in the Admiralty of Guyenne;
• [CP 38]: wrapper of the parcel sent from the Admiralty of Guyenne;
• [CP 39]: allegation of Mercer, November 1743;
• [CP 40-CP 46]: commission to examine witnesses in Cork on behalf of Mercer and of Fanning, allegation, interrogatory and cross-interrogatory, deposition of Thomas Bull about the capture by the Bessborough, and 2 proxies, all returned into court April 1744;
• [CP 47-CP 50]: attestation as to papers in [SP A] incorporating an inner wrapper, docket, and abstract and translation of the 17 ship's papers with a note that 10, 14 and 16 were sent for examination to Bordeaux, brought into court November 1742;
• [CP 51-CP 52]: attestation as to papers in [SP B], and docket, brought into court November 1742

Ship's Papers, in bundles A and B:

Bundle A: SP A1-SP A17

• SP A, the wrapper sent to the court;
• SP A1-SP A17: ship's papers, with a copy of 5: 10, 14 and 16 are not here, but at CP 20-CP 22.

Bundle B, mail in transit, found concealed behind a secret panel in the master's cabin door.

• SP B, the wrapper sent to the court;
• SP B1-SP B11, comprising 11 letters from Philip Saxton, of Messrs Meagher, San Sebastian, to his family and others in Waterford, July and August 1742 [NS].

[Decision: condemned as prize, 25 January 1745]

See also IND 1/9022, f56. For the subsequent capture of the Spanish privateer, see

For examinations of Messrs Dillon and Cruise in London, see HCA 32/153/3 HCA 13/89