[A1706/10/41]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
To his grace her majesty's high commissioner and the honourable estates of parliament,
Sir Robert Blackwood, late dean of guild, James Nairn, present bailie, William Neilson, present dean of guild, Alexander Baird, late bailie, William Jaffray, late treasurer, Gavin Plummer, Robert Forrest, Patrick Crawford, Samuel Chalmers, Ralph Charters, James Marjoribanks and Charles Charters, all owners of the ship St Andrew and her cargo,
Humbly shows,
That the ship St Andrew, belonging to your petitioners, whereof Charles Charters was commander, being fully loaded with wine and other commodities, and plying her voyage homeward to Leith, was seized by a Middelburg privateer in the month of April 1706 and adjudged prize, and she and her cargo, to the value of £2,050 sterling disposed of upon this single account: that the ship called Catherine, loaded with canary wine belonging to [...], was seized upon by Captain Gordon and adjudged prize and her cargo disposed upon. And albeit her majesty wrote to the lords of treasury to reimburse the owners, which not being duly answered, they adjudged your petitioner's ship the St Andrew and cargo in reprisal hereof from denegrated justice, which sentence of theirs not proceeding from any fact or fault of ours, but upon the public account, it is hard for us to bear this loss who had no hand in adjudging the said ship Catherine, nor got any share of her or cargo, the same being applied to the public use.
May it therefore please your grace and honourable estates to order the repayment to us of the aforesaid sum of £2,050 sterling as the just value of the said ship and cargo taken from us by reprisal as said is, and to recommend us to the lords of her majesty's treasury for that effect. And your petitioners shall ever pray.
Edinburgh, 17 March 1707
Her majesty's high commissioner and the estates of parliament, having heard this petition, they recommend the case of the petitioners to her majesty's consideration.
[James Ogilvy, earl of] Seafield, chancellor, in the presence of the lords of parliament