Catalogue description Vice-Admiralty Courts: Proceedings

This series consists of the records of proceedings of the Vice-Admiralty courts held in the colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, 1795 to 1805; Cape Nichola Mole [Saint Domingue], 1797 to 1799; Guadaloupe, 1811 to 1815; Jamaica, 1747 to 1748; Minorca, 1799 to 1802; New York, 1777 to 1783; Sierra Leone, 1808 to 1817. There are also proceedings for various places, 1636 to 1875, including some for Lancashire and Cheshire, 1635 to 1642, and some arising from trials of pirates, 1723 to 1733.

The series contains a wide variety of filed documents and exhibits, including abstracts, affidavits, answers, appraisements, bills of lading, cargo lists, certificates of registration, claims, day books, decrees of delivery and possession, decrees of unilivery, depositions, examinations, interrogatories, invoices, letters of attorney, libels, lists of adjudications, memoranda, monitions, passports, petitions, powers of attorney, powers of procuration, seamen's articles, ships' manifests, stipulation bonds, translations and other documents.

HCA 49/98-106 comprise records of various Vice-Admiralty courts at home and abroad, although the records of the colonial courts often consist only of returns in the form of lists of adjudications.

For further overseas Vice-Admiralty records see HCA 1/99

Notes on this series are available in printed form at the PRO.