Captured ship: Endeavour of London (master John McCarthy or Mackarthy or Mackartney...

Captured ship: Endeavour of London (master John McCarthy or Mackarthy or Mackartney and as a French prize, Toussaint Gaufery).

History: an English or Irish merchant ship (brigantine, 80 tons, 6 guns, 8 men), bound from London to Dublin, laden with rye, flour and wheat; taken on 22 June / 3 July 1745 by the French privateer Triomphant of Paimpol (Antoine de Pomelle commanding), retaken on 24 June / 5 July 1745 by the privateer Dursley Galley (Robert Veitch commanding), and brought into the Downs.

Documents:-

Court Papers:

• [CP 1-CP 5]: standing interrogatories, three examinations taken at Deal, commissioners' affidavit;
• [CP 6]: attestation and claim on behalf of Joseph Kemp for the ship, Thomas Blair of Dublin for the cargo, and the master John McCarthy, July 1745;
• [CP 7]: attestation as to the perishing nature of the cargo, August 1745;
• [CP 8-CP 10]: commission of appraisement, with inventory and account, August 1745;
• [CP 11]: attestation as to papers.

Ship's Papers: the papers for the current voyage were probably removed by the Triomphant [they do not appear with papers from that ship in HCA 32/155/17]. The papers here are from the master's archive (including papers from previous voyages, 1742-1745) and the mate's archive (Charles McCarthy, 174-1745). Left unnumbered by the court, they were numbered as bundles A, B and C in 2018.

Bundle A: ship's papers and receipts 1741-1745, for succesive voyages of the Endeavour from London to Santa Cruz [Agadir] in south Barbary, and to Venice and Ancona, to Middelburg and then Sallee [Salé] on the Barbary Coast, and to South Carolina. Now numbered A/1-A/4:

• A/1-A/4: charterparties and agreements;
• A/5-A/21: bills of lading, lighthouse dues, bills of health, convoy signals etc;
• A/22-A/46: receipts and accounts for the ship, and for goods sold;
• A/47-A/61A: receipts for wages, pages from a book of sailors' accounts, a hospital and funeral account, receipt for clothing;
• A/62-A/69: bills of exchange etc;
• A/70: insurance policy for the ship Deborah (master John Heslop) bound from the Texel to South Carolina, March 1740/1741.

Bundle B: John McCarthy's letters and personal receipts:

• B/1-B/4: business letters from John McCarthy, written from Barbary, Gibraltar, and South Carolina;
• B/5-B/25: business and personal letters to John McCarthy, from London, Santa Cruz, Venice, Salé, his mother Margaret McCarthy from Youghal, and brother Charles [not the same person as the mate]: arranged by date of writing;
• B/26: protection of John MCarthy , aged 27, from impressment from the Martha storeship, 1742;
• B/27-B/32: bills and receipts for clothes, food and amusements.

Bundle C: Charles McCarthy's archive (who joined the Endeavour as mate in May 1745):

• C/1-C/2: letters from Charles McCarthy, May 1745, with a sentence in Irish in C/1;
• C/3-C/14: letters to Charles McCarthy, April 1744-May 1745, from Kingsworth or Kingsware [Kingswear], Dartmouth and his father Timothy McCarthy in Cork.
• C 15: leather wallet containing C 16 and probably formerly containing C 1-C 14 above;
• C 16: notebook tucked inside C 15, blank apart from first page, which has a note:"To call for one carrier a waterman that plys at Billingsgate and if he did not deliver the coat and waistcoat to Mr Kelly in Piccadilly be pleased to go to the man and get them and leave them at Mr Kelly's. I paid [him] a shilling for to leave them there". C 15 and C16 were added from HCA 32/1829 in July 2022, on the grounds that the handwriting is similar and given the place and subject matter, the balance of probabilities seems to indicate this wallet and notebook likely belonged to Charles MacCarthy.

[Decision: restored, paying one-fifth salvage 15 February 1746]