15. Whether was there any charter party signed for the voyage, wherein the schooner, concerning which you are now examined, was taken and seized? what is become thereof? when, where, and between whom was the same made? what were the contents thereof?
16. What papers, bills of lading, letters, or other writings, any way concerning or relating to the schooner concerning which you are now examined, were on board the said schooner at the time of the seizure of the said schooner? were any of the papers thrown overboard by any person, and whom, and when, and by whose orders?
17. What loss or damage have you sustained, by reason of the seizing and taking of the said schooner concerning which you are now examined? to what value does such loss or damages amount? and how and after what manner do you compute such loss and damage? have you received any and what satisfaction for such the loss and damage which you have sustained, and when and from whom did you receive the same?
[1] From Anthony Stokes's View of the Constitution of the British Colonies (London, 1783), pp. 284-288; already in print, but inasmuch as the most learned of American admiralty judges told the editor of this volume that he had never seen a set of the standing interrogatories, that were used at this period, it seems not superfluous to print one here. Later sets, more elaborate, as used in 1798, may be found in Christopher Robinson's Admiralty Reports, I. 381-389, and in Marriott, Formulare Instrumentorum (London, 1802), pp. 130-148. Since in civil-law procedure witnesses were not examined orally in open court, but all testimony was obtained in the form of written depositions, it was advisable in prize proceedings, in order that examinations might be thorough and searching, to employ standard sets of questions, ready-made. Anthony Stokes (1735-1799), from whose book the present specimen is taken, was an English or Welsh lawyer, practised law in Antigua and St. Christopher 1763-1769, and was chief-justice of Georgia, 1769-1776, 1779-1782, then retired to England as a loyalist. His book contains many specimens of documents used in proceedings before the vice-admiralty courts in the colonies.
[2] I.e., of what country.
[3] A statement of the longitude, it will be observed, is not required. Any navigator of that time could easily determine his latitude, but there was no accurate method of determining longitude at sea till John Harrison made his trial voyage to Jamaica with his chronometer in 1761-1762.
LA VIRGEN DEL ROSARIO Y EL SANTO
CRISTO DE BUEN VIAGE.
184. Libel of Richard Haddon. March 9, 1757.[1]
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Province of New York Court of Vice Admiralty | To the Honourable Lewis Morris Esqr[2] Commissary and Judge of the Court of Vice Admiralty for the province of New York. |