Captured ship: Primrose of London (master Edward Bryant). History: an English merchant...

Captured ship: Primrose of London (master Edward Bryant).

History: an English merchant ship (ketch, 50 tons), bound from Limehouse (left on 13/23 December 1673) via the Downs (left on 27 January/6 February 1673/1674) to Nantes, laden with herring, lead and copperas (a ferrous sulphate used for making inks and pigments); chased into Dartmouth by privateers, anchoring there 12/22 February 1673/1674; then seen at 6 am on 16/26 March 1674, drifting without any sails about 2-3 leagues (6-9 miles) off St Ives, Cornwall; found abandoned, half-full of water, having been taken and plundered, apparently by a Dutch privateer; brought into St Ives and seized that evening for the Vice-Admiral of North Cornwall. No papers were found aboard - except one letter from Nicholas Skinner merchant of London to Edward Bryant, master of the Primrose ketch of London, whilst the latter was in France, October [1673] (on a previous voyage), and a Dutch privateering commission [not found]. The HCA commission of appraisement and inspection was obstructed, resisted and refused by the local Deputy Vice-admirals and had to be extended, 11 April 1674, with authority to break open the locked cellar where the seized goods were held.

Court Papers, numbered CP 1-8:-

• [CP 1]: letter, 16 March 1673/1674;
• [CP 2]: letter, 17 March 1673/1674;
• [CP 3]: letter, 17 March 1673/1674, with copies of two letters (30 October 1673 and undated), [extracts from] journal of Edward Bryant, 13 December 1673-12 February 1673/1674);
• [CP 4]: affidavit of Nicholas Skinner, 25 March 1673/1674;
• [CP 5]: Peter Sealey and Arthur Paynter to Hugh Jones (Deputy Vice-admiral), 1 April 1674;
• [CP 6]: (same) to Sir Robert Wiseman (judge), 4 April 1674;
• [CP 7]: commission, 25 March 1674;
• [CP 8]: manifest (claim).

Extra information:-

• See also IND 1/9012 f.69v.
• Not to be confused with a larger (200 tons) and foreign-built ship of the same name: see SP 29/361, no 176 (29 July 1674); SP 44/40, p.229 (3 July 1674) [not calendared in State Papers Online]; Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1673-1675, pp.321, 322