Archival adventures – The Scandinavian Prize Papers

All citations are to the British National Archives at Kew in London, where the Prize Papers are archived.

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Textile samples — HCA 32/508 These are some among many of the textile samples found among the Prize Papers. The ship was the Anna Maria of Denmark captured in 1795.

HCA 32/872. A letter of marque issued by the French Republic, dated 2 Fructidor, year 6 of the Republic. The seized ship (the Tvilling Riget, a Danish East India Company ship) may have been previously seized by a French privateer. She was captured by an English navy sloop in 1799.

HCA 30/649. A receipt for the payment of a lighthouse tax. This one, for the Dungeness lighthouse in the English Channel, contains pictorial details about how early lighthouses actually worked. From the ship St. Peter of Swinsondt (Norway) captured in 1665-66.

HCA 32/26 A love letter from Jönss Jansson, a sailor, to his friend Booll Antonisdotr, dated 17 December 1695. Found unopened and with the wax seal still unbroken. Ship: St. Jacob (Sweden) captured 1695.

HCA 30/765 A leather glove lost among the papers from the Johanna og Maria, a Danish ship captured in 1799.

HCA 32/759 A Freemasonic invitation in the shape of a triangle, an important masonic symbol. Probably from the Danish East India ship Scielland which was captured in 1797. La Vertueuse was one of at least two Masonic lodges in Dutch Batavia in the second half of the eighteenth century

HCA 32/119 . Astrological predictions from a German almanac of 1747. Probably from a Danish ship captured a few years later.

HCA 32/127. A Compass rose decorated with sea scenes. From the ship Jackten Lovisa (Sweden), captured in 1743.

HCA 32/269 Sound toll receipt. Ship: St. Anna of Sweden, captured 1780,

HCA 30/757 Minutes of the ship’s council “holden omborde skibet Constantia” on a trip to Tranquebar and the Bay of Bengal in the East Indies. 1783-87 Found among the papers of a different East India ship, the Johanna og Maria (Denmark), captured 1799.

HCA 32/1149. Directions from a London shoemaker about how to order boots and shoes. Ship: Phoenix (Denmark) captured 1799.

HCA 32/1149 A caricature of a top-hatted man. Ship: Phoenix (Denmark) captured 1799.

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