Catalogue description Captured ship: Mehemetcha or Mehemetca , formerly The Moor of Pondicherry (master Jean...

Captured ship: Mehemetcha or Mehemetca, formerly The Moor of Pondicherry (master Jean Baptiste Du Bois; nominal master, under Moorish colours, Iman Coelan Poesana).

History: a French East India merchant ship [Moorish built, 200 tons, 8 guns, 60 men of whom 7 were European Frenchmen and the rest (including petty officers) were Lascars or Moors, with many from French Pondicherry] bound from Manila to Pondicherry [Puducherry], laden with silver, gold, cowries and other things, in place of the outward cargo of linens and silver; taken on 24 January /4 February 1745 in the straits of Malacca by HMS Medway (Edward Peyton commanding) and HMS Dolphin (John Moore commanding), and brought into Batavia.

Documents:-

Court Papers:

• [Examinations taken in London, see: HCA 13/90, fo. 353]
• [CP 1-CP 16]: several examinations and attestations taken in Batavia, with translations;: Du Bois ordered the clerk to throw a packet of Spanish papers overboard; they had a Malabar captain to colour the trade of the French to the Indies, but he had not the command or direction of the ship or cargo];
• [CP 17]: attestation as to the translation from St Helena;
• [CP 18]: second translations of the Batavian court papers from London;
• [CP 19]: allegation;
• [CP 20-CP 22]: attestation as to papers, and abstract and translation of the 23 ship's papers.

Ship's Papers numbered SP 1-SP 15 and SP 33-SP 41.

[Decision: condemned as prize, 23 October 1746]