[1661/1/18]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
The estates of parliament having taken trial of the carriage of Major John Fletcher, captain of the frigate The Eagle, concerning these hogsheads and kists wherein the public records of this kingdom were, and which were put into the said frigate to be carried from Gravesend hither, do find, by the depositions of witnesses that were in the ship, that if a great part of the hogsheads wherein the registers were had not either been thrown over board or put in another vessel the frigate, in all humane appearance through the violence of the storm, had inevitably perished, and that therefore Major Fletcher had put above 80 hogsheads full of the said registers in a ship of the Wemyss† called [The Elizabeth] whereof John Wemyss is master, and which ship is since perished and sunk with all these 85 hogsheads and records in her, in regard whereof the king's majesty, with advice and consent of his estates of parliament, do exonerate the said Major Fletcher and declare that he used his uttermost endeavour to preserve the registers.
[1661/1/19]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
The king's majesty and estates of parliament, considering that the public records of this kingdom, which have been in England those years bygone, being by public order put into Major Fletcher's trust to be carried hither in his majesty's frigate, called The Eagle, whereof he is captain, and that they were necessitated, through the violence of a storm (which was so great as ship and all therein had almost perished) to put 85 of these hogsheads into another ship, which since is sunk and drowned with these hogsheads and records in her, and that it is found, by the trial and depositions of the witnesses taken in the business, that Mr John Young who was attending these registers did not at all consent to the taking them out of the frigate or putting them into another ship, do therefore exonerate the said Mr John Young and declares him free of any accession to the loss of these registers and that he carried himself faithfully according to his trust.