Captured ship: Providence of Boston (master Robert Sinclair). History: a Scottish...

Captured ship: Providence of Boston (master Robert Sinclair).

History: a Scottish ship (160 tons, 12 guns, 6 Scotsmen, an Englishman and a Swede), claiming to be bound from Amsterdam to Boston, Massachusetts, laden with gunpowder, small arms, coal, lead and bottles. The ship actually sailed to St Margaret's Hope in the Orkney Islands, where it supplied weapons and soldiers to Sir James Stuart, in support of the 1745 Jacobite Rising, before attempting to sail west to Boston. Bad weather then caused the ship to be driven back to the Orkneys, to play a continued role in the rebellion: she was eventually captured around two weeks after Christmas 1745 off the Island of Stroma by HMS Sheerness (Lucius O'Brien commanding), and was brought first into Leith, then into the River Thames. Also taken at that time was the Prince Charles (Commander Talbot) HCA 32/142/21.

Documents:-

Court Papers:

• [Examinations taken in London, see: HCA 13/90, fos 339, 342-343, 347];
• [CP 1-CP 2]: claim and later attestation;
• [CP 3]: allegation;
• [CP 4a-CP 4h]: attestation as to damages incurred in the case of the Providence, with 7 annexed exhibits;
• [CP 5]: letter of attorney;
• [CP 6-CP 11]: four attestations as to papers, abstracts and translations of 24 of the ship's papers, docket;

Ship's Papers numbered SP 1-SP 112 (SPs 32, 33, 53, 54, 107 and 110 not clearly present) and SP A-SP E (unnumbered and fragmentary papers).

Mail in Transit: one letter from London to Newport, Rhode Island, dated August 1745. Numbered [1].

[Decision: condemned as prize, 28 June 1746]

HCA 32/142/21