Item. That he quitted the said Culliford the Middle of December last and went on board the ship Nasaw, Giles Shelley Master,[6] that went from New yorke to Madagascar to trade there (the said Buckmaster being willing to come home to his family, the said Shelley being bound back to New Yorke), that he gave the said Shelley 100 pieces of Eight for his passage, which was the Comon rate and which sume he believes Fifty more passengers that came from on board pyrate ships at Madagascar and Saint Maries gave to the said Shelley, the said Shelley as he believes well knowing what ships they had been in and what designe they came from.
Item. That the said Shelley sailed from the Island Saint Maries in the East Indies to Chyan[7] where he stayd three or four dayes.
Item. That five or six of the persons that belonged to Capt. Culliford in the East Indies went on board Capt. Gravenreadt[8] out of Shelleys ship, when she came on this coast at Cape May, which Cape they made on Friday sevennight last.[9] Gravenreadts vessel lay about two miles from Shelleys ship, but the said Gravenreadts came on board shelleys ship, and believes made an agreemt. with the several men he took on board with him for their passages to [blank]: Vizt. Robert English, Jan Spons, Theophilus [blank][10] and two or three Others. That John Elderige, —— Stanton, and Doctor —— Badwain[11] went on shore at Cape May: they also came from on board Culliford.
Item. That they came to Sandy Hook on Fryday last in the Evening, that the said Edward Buckmaster, Paul Swan, Jonathan Evans and Otto van Toyle went on shore at the west end of long Island on Saturday last at seven of the Clock in the Evening, they also belonged to Culliford; that he was at New Utrecht yesterday and came to New Yorke last night. That he has been often in the hold of Shelleys ship dureing the voyage but saw nothing but water Casks, and that he never saw but four Gunns on the Deck since he was on board.
That one Capt. Shivers[12] came to saint Marys with a ship called the soldado of 40 Gunns while Shelley was there, which ship is run ashore.
That he did not see the Quedaw Merchant nor Capt. Wright.
That he was at Callicut and Carresaw[13] in Kidds ship.
A True Copy.
Bellomont.
[1] Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MSS., A. 272, fol. 48; also in the Public Record Office, C.O. 5:1042, no. 40 XI. Edward Buckmaster, "one of Shelley's men", was committed June 7, and broke prison Aug. 25. Cal. St. P. Col., 1699, pp. 278, 401. A year later, though he was supposed to be still alive, a rascally chaplain of the fort at New York married his wife to Capt. Adam Baldridge of [document no. 68], obtaining a marriage license for "Adam Ball" and adding "-dridge" afterward. N.Y. Col. Doc., IV. 333, 413, 766.
[2] Capt. John Nanfan, a cousin of Bellomont's wife, was lieutenant-governor of New York under him, and administered the province during Bellomont's absence in Massachusetts.