Message from the past
When checking some of the unlisted boxes that will be included in the new catalogue I found this message from myself from 1984! No excuse this time….
Transporting the prisoner to Edinburgh
The box is full of a mixture of records – mainly Quarter Sessions papers – and among them was this little note from the Town Clerk about transporting a captured French Prisoner to Edinburgh. There is no date on the document but the watermark on the paper is 1804 – that means it must have been written after that date but, intriguingly, close to the battle of Trafalgar and the events that led up to it.
Rescued by the Smack Britannia
It is a draft letter to the Provost of the City of Edinburgh which is why it is undated and unsent. It tells us that
“A short time ago Persons who had been found unboard a British Vessel which had been captured by a Privateer belonging to the Enemy and recaptured by the Smack Britannia of thes Port and some other Vessels belonging to Leith and Berwick were landed here from the Britannia. One of them appeared to be an American, having since offered to serve in His Majesties Fleet was sent forward to Leith to be put on board one of His Majesties Ships there, the other I now take the liberty to send to Edinburgh for the purpose of being lodged among the other Prisoners of War at that place and I have to request that your Lordship will be pleased to give the proper Directions for his being received on his arrival – He will go by the Edinburgh Waggon tomorrow morning and will arrive in Edinburgh on..“
The smack Britannia is listed in Fuller’s History of Berwick (1799) and belonged to the Old Shipping Company. The Berwick smacks that navigated between Berwick and London, he says, are universally admitted to exceed that of any other in the known world for “safety and expedition”.
Would you like to volunteer?
We do not intend to employ a Press Gang but if you are interesting in joining us as a volunteer we will be holding a couple of short introductory sessions at the Berwick Archives (in Berwick upon Tweed Library in Walkergate) on Saturday 23rd March and Tuesday 26th March at 2 pm. You’ll have a chance to see what we are doing and see if any of the tasks suit you. You can email us on ttar@northumberland.gov.uk if interested in attending or for more information about the project.