No 18. Captured ship: Dolphin (master unknown). History: [a Dutch East India Company...

No 18.

Captured ship: Dolphin (master unknown).

History: [a Dutch East India Company (VOC Zeeland division) hooker or bootje (90-120 tons, built at Rotterdam in 1668), bound from Colombo or elsewhere in Ceylon to [Zeeland, via the Dutch Cape (left 9/19 April 1672 with the homebound fleet under Johan de Barra), laden with pepper, cinnamon and other East India goods; taken on 21/31 July 1672 in the North Sea, by HMS Richmond (David Trotter commanding) and brought into London.

Allegation (13 September 1672) in Trotter v The Dolphin. On 21 July 1672 HMS Richmond saw the Dolphin sailing in company with 2 other Dutch ships (a naval warship and a galliot hoy), and gave chase for 4-6-hours, during which the Dutch warship kept out of gun range, outsailed HMS Richmond, and signalled her consorts to make their best escape. The Dolphin's crew discharged 2 guns into the hold of the ship in an unsuccessful attempt to scuttle her, then abandoned ship in a boat, later recovered adrift with some of the crew's clothes by HMS Richmond. Papers showed the ship (undamaged by the attempt to scuttle, 120 tons, a dolphin painted on her stern) was bound from Colombo or elsewhere in the East Indies. [Text describing the lading as pepper, cinnamon and other East India goods and its pillaging by the crew of HMS Richmond has been struck through.]

Extra information:-

• See Huygens Instituut, Dutch East India Company resources, Dutch Asiatic Shipping, voyage 5637.1.
• See also SP 29/313, no 210. T Aslaby to Williamson, 5 August 1672; Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1672, p.445. The prize's 2 consorts are said here (information from HMS Argier [Algiers] via Bridlington) to have been Dutch privateers.
• See also IND 1/9012 f14v: condemned 2 October 1672.
• Not found in HCA 32.