Captured by the French!

Set off from home this morning to UVA full of hopes about looking through the William Short papers to read Alexander probably being quite self deprecating but at the same time quite pushy and nagging to take over the monopoly of exporting tobacco to the French. On way to library noticed that Barbour wellies are very fashionable - students wearing them for lectures etc, even though it was not raining. All different colours. Fashion note for those coming out in a few weeks! They have to be quite clean though, don't think mine would cut it.

Got to the library to find the one box of William Short papers I wanted was out on an inter-library loan. No matter - I can read them in Richmond at the Virginia Library. Then thought I would finish off the Loyalist claims, so started to look up with microfilms I would need. Films 178, 243, 235, 170, 236, 282, 252, 238, 229, 188, 288, 280, 184, 281, 282, 283. That is a lot of films to look at!

The Colonial Records Project was an amazing thing - from what I can tell every document in England seems to have been scanned in for the project - which means if you want to find something, you certainly have a lot of documents to look at. Fortunately, there seems to be one at the very end about the Loyalist Claims - from 1809 that sums up the whole case - and from the notes about that one, all the claims may have come unstuck because of Robert Donald. So reel 286 is the next one to go for. The answer lies in there, I hope!

Decided to keep that for later - maybe get an MA (Hons) Cantab History graduate to help me with that when she comes out - bring your Hunters Carrie.

So then started to look through the records of Donald shipping - obviously a vital part of the empire, but one we know little about. Slowly building up some names of ships that we owned - the Bowman, the Murdoch, the Donald, The Peggy and the New Donald.

The first thing I came across was a letter from 1761. From the Senegal that was in Plymouth Sound on August 10th:

Please to acquaint the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that on the ??th Instant being five Leagues NNE of Ushant, I retook the New Donald, who sailed from Virginia the 5th of July bound to Glasgow, she was taken the 3rd Inst by the Sage, a French 6A Gun ship, in the latitude of 55-17N Longitude 19-2W. 
I am informed by the Prisoners that the Sage sailed from Port Louis in St Domingo, the 4th of June, in Company with the Courageux of 7A Guns, Malicieuse and Lorminne frigates all laden with merchandise, their water proving they put into Havana the 22nd from whence they sailed the 24th, the Sage parted company with them the 3 of July in the Latitude of 35-16 N Longitude 75-6W. 
As the Virginia man is deep laden and sailes ill, I hope their Lordships will not diapprove my seeing her into Plymouth sound, 
I am sir your most humble servant
John Houlton 


Written on the back of the letter was the fact this was approved.

Notes about the Senegal - she herself was captured by the French in 1778 and renamed, using all the Gallic imagination La Senegal and was with the French until 1780. On 2 November 1780 in a fierce engagement at the mouth of the River Gambia, the sloop HMS Zephyr, under the command of Lt Inglis, captured La Senegal. The Senegal as she was then renamed was blown up in an accident during the commencement of a refit, the cause remains unknown and the accident killed 23 members of the crew of HMS Zephyr.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the Virginia Colonial records project - you could if you so wanted then go and look up for 1761, the time she recaptured our ship - the Captain's log, the mater's log, the muster and the paybook. All on separate films. I have the numbers here.

Even though I can't quite make out the date of the recapture - by the time the New Donald made it to Plymouth Sound, it was about five weeks since she set sail - so nearly same length of time as my whole stay here.

God bless the Senegal!