No 39. Captured ship: Justitia of Ostend (commander Cornelis Mareschael of Ostend,...

No 39.

Captured ship: Justitia of Ostend (commander Cornelis Mareschael of Ostend, otherwise Mareschal, Marichael).

History: a Flemish (Spanish Netherlands) Armada of Flanders naval warship (Bruges admiralty) (160-200 tons, 20 guns, 70 men, built in the Dutch Republic), bound from Flushing [?] to Ostend to convoy merchant ships to London; taken on 31 October 1673 in Spithead Roads by HMS Falcon (Thomas Andrews commanding) and brought into Portsmouth.

Allegation [of Andrews], 17 December 1673:-

• On 31 October 1673 the ship sailed past HMS Falcon, then at anchor at Spithead. The Justitia, a warship, had her guns run out and match lit, was cleared for action, and then headed for Cowes where many small vessels lay windbound.
• HMS Falcon hailed the ship and then took her. Andrews and his men found Dutch colours aboard, which were flying at the time of capture, which the captain and some crew confessed had been used aboard for 'some years' before.
• Mareschal could not produce any commission, except an old one dated August 1667, issued by Don Francisco de Moura, Marquis of Castle Rodrigo [Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, 1664-1668], for Mareschal as captain of an entirely different ship, the frigate St Anthony of Padua.
• The Justitia was built in the Dutch Republic and is Dutch, as some of the crew have confessed. She was recently in Dutch ports and was victualled and manned there.
• Some 7-10 days before capture, ship was at Flushing or some other Dutch port; Mareschal has confessed to carrying Dutch instructions for his voyage.

See also HCA 32/1949/16