Record revealed
Letters from the curator of St Vincent Botanic Gardens
Discover how plants travelled across the British Empire in the 19th century and the effect this has on our natural environment, and eating habits, today.
Piece
A collection of 524 letters in French, plus some others enclosed with these, addressed...
Catalogue reference: HCA 30/1071
What’s it about?
This record is about the A collection of 524 letters in French, plus some others enclosed with these, addressed... dating from 1770-1778 in the series High Court of Admiralty, and Supreme Court of Judicature: Admiralty Miscellanea. It is held at The National Archives, Kew.
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Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- HCA 30/1071
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1770-1778
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Description (What the record is about)
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A collection of 524 letters in French, plus some others enclosed with these, addressed mostly to seamen serving in many different ships in the Indian Ocean, including India, Mauritius (Isle de France) and Réunion (Isle Bourbon). Some of the letters are addressed to soldiers and others. Many of the letters to seamen are written by family members (wives, mothers, fathers, sweethearts, brothers etc) back home in Brittany, from where the French East India Company / Compagnie des Indes drew many of their crews. Many display signs of the writers being lower class with limited literacy.
Many are addressed to ships at Mauritius, no doubt to be collected when the ship called there. It seems that this is a collection of mail which was never collected by the addressees, and was most likely being returned to France as undelivered mail in a ship (as yet unidentified) when that ship was taken by the British. (It is possible, but not particularly likely, that the letters collected here may represent more than one consignment of undelivered mail, taken from different ships at different times.)
Some of the letters have been annotated with terse remarks on the fate of the addressee:"mort","mort à l'hopital" etc, confirming their status as undelivered mail.
Documents, now numbered in two sequences:
- 1-428: letters dated 15 March 1770 to 17 May 1778, in date order.
- 429-451: undated letters.
- F1-F73: letters stored flat, in date order.
Nos. 140, 223, 345B, 433 and 446 are still sealed (as of July 2025).
This piece was created in July 2025, collecting together letters found among other material in HCA 30/290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298 and 300. For a time, while the papers were being assembled, they were stored in Prize Papers Project Temporary Sorting Box 130 (TSB 130) and 130A-130E. Those TSB 130 references are now discontinued; anything which was for a time in TSB 130 etc is now in this piece, HCA 30/1071.
This piece is currently (2025-2026) the subject of a research project by linguists of the French language. Contact the Prize Papers Team for further information.
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Note (Additional information about the record)
- New piece created in July 2025, containing letters from: HCA 30/290-300. Formerly collected together as Temporary Sorting Box 130 and 130A-130E.
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Former reference (Former reference given to the record)
- HCA 30/290-300
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
- French
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Closure status (Whether the record is ‘open’ (available to the public) or ‘closed’ (not available due to a legal exemption))
- Open Document, Open Description
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C20804023/
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- View this record page in our current catalogue
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- Select an option and follow instructions
Series information
HCA 30
High Court of Admiralty, and Supreme Court of Judicature: Admiralty Miscellanea
See the series level description for more information about this record.
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
109,109 records
Within the department: HCA
Records of the High Court of Admiralty and colonial Vice-Admiralty courts
2,339 records
Within the series: HCA 30
High Court of Admiralty, and Supreme Court of Judicature: Admiralty Miscellanea
You are currently looking at the piece: HCA 30/1071
A collection of 524 letters in French, plus some others enclosed with these, addressed...
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