Catalogue description Captured ship: Nuestra Senora de los Remedios alias La Ninfa (also known as La Nimfa del...

Captured ship: Nuestra Senora de los Remedios alias La Ninfa (also known as La Nimfa del Mar or Nymphe) (captain Bernardo del Alamo, master Juan Manuel de Bonilla; owners Francisco de la Villa Santa and Juan Manuel de Banilla).

History: a Spanish register ship (400 tons, 28 carriage guns and 6 swivels, 280 men, boys and passengers, plus 5 women and 1 child) bound from Cadiz to Vera Cruz on or after 3/14 February 1747, laden with wine, oil, brandy, steel, quicksilver, etc; taken without resistance on 9/20 February 1747 in latitude 35°30'N, 50 leagues from Cape St Vincent by the privateers King George (George Walker commanding), Prince Frederick (Hugh Bromedge commanding), Duke (Edward Dottin commanding), Princess Amelia (Robert Denham commanding), Prince George (John Green commanding), and the Prince Edward tender (James Shaftoe commanding) (the Royal Family privateer squadron), and brought into Lisbon.

Court Papers:

• [CP 1]: official copies of 4 examinations taken at Lisbon.
• [CP 2]: allegation (alleging her to be a French ship; perhaps a clerical error).
• [CP 3]: attestation as to papers.
• [CP 4]: translations of the ship's papers A-F.
• [CP 5-8]: four sets of attestations by various English merchants relating to goods belonging to them shipped on board La Ninfa, Bernardo del Alamo, captain, under false or proxy Spanish names, for a voyage from Cadiz to Vera Cruz in 1741. As this was a previous voyage, the goods would not have been in her when she was captured in 1747. These papers were originally numbered, in 1741, in date order, 4, 3, 5 and 6, suggesting there may be others as yet unidentified among unsorted material. (This is a different sequence from the 1 to 10 sequence in which the court numbered the ten parcels of papers taken from the ship in 1747 - see below.)
• [CP 9]: declaration by Joseph and Jacob Salvador, merchants of London, that they were the real owners of goods shipped on board La Ninfa in 1741. This declaration was made in anticipation that the goods might be taken prize.

Ship's Papers marked A-F, and [SP 1]:

• SP A: commission or letter of marque.
• SP B: copy of the register, copied in Lisbon (the originals of B, C and D were returned to the captors' agents).
• SP C: copy of the master's entry book of goods received on board (cargo manifest) and account of more than 730 bills of lading he signed.
• SP D: copy of the names of the people who laded goods on board with their merchant marks.
• SP E: muster roll.
• SP F: account of the 'visitation' of La Ninfa (another muster), of which Donna Angela de Prado was owner, and an account of 1467 one-and-half-quintal boxes of quicksilver belonging to the King of Spain. SP FA and SP FB were between the pages of SP F, and have been left in place. SP FB is a printed decree concerning regulations and procedures for recording cargo.
• [SP 1]: muster book (court no. 9).

Ship's Papers not individually numbered by the court, and now numbered [SP 2-448J]. All the seized papers, including the personal archives and mail in transit, were originally in ten bundles numbered 1 to 10 which were subsequently split up (except bundle no. 3 and possibly no. 8, as indicated below). There was probably little significance to the original assorted bundles:

• [SP 2-SP 162]: Court Bundle no. 3.
• [SP 163-SP 354]: Court Bundle no. 8.
• [SP 355-SP 448J]: papers from various bundles, subsequently split up.

Personal archives: letters and a few papers in the possession of several people on the ship when she was captured, including crewmen and passengers, numbered [P 1-138]:

• Archive of letters (in Spanish) from Renteria (Errenteria) in the Basque Country (for an explanation of these see Xabier Lamikiz Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth-Century World pp.122-124) addressed to:
  • [P 1-P 8]: Juan Bautista de Lacoa. [P 6] has a note in the Basque language in the margin; [P 8] is a letter of introduction.
  • [P 9]: Luis Jose de Echevarria.
  • [P 10-P 16]: Pedro Francisco de Iribarren (probably in the safe keeping of Lacoa, to deliver personally in Buenos Aires).
  • [P 17-P 19]: Miguel Antonio de Ezcurrechea (ditto).
  • [P 20-P 21]: Andres de Astina.
  • [P 22-P 28]: Juan Joseph Antonio de Berrondo. [P 24] is from his mother, and [P 28] from his wife, written for her by Joseph de Sarvide.
  • [P 29]: Joseph Antonio de Zauala.

Other personal archives of letters received by:

• [P 30]: Bernardo del Alamo (the captain) from his wife.
• [P 31-P 34]: Juan Manuel de Bonilla (the master).
• [P 35-P 39]: Pedro del Cueto y Laconcha (a pastry waiter in the crew).
• [P 40]: Juan Muños (a crewman) from his wife.
• [P 41]: Joseph de Linares, from his father.
• [P 42-P 43]: Simon Negrete y Zierra (or possibly mail-in-transit).
• [P 44]: Augustin de Vazeta.
• [P 45-P47A]: Miguel de Camaño.
• [P 48-P49]: Pedro de La Torre (with which has been placed a Bill of Lading relating to an Antonio de la Thorre, marked 'Sundry Parcels of Papers & Letters belonging to the Ninfa, being Ten in Number' and the court no. 10, indicating that this was the end paper of the tenth bundle.)
• [P 50]: Joangorena.
• [P 51]: Juan Asilio del Castillo.
• [P 52-P 53]: Joseph David.
• [P 54- P 82]: Francisco Alvares de Guitian, including:
  • [P 54-P 66]: several long affectionate letters in Spanish from his wife Francisca, who calls him 'Panchito', 1742-1743; her baptismal certificate; and two letters from her to her brother Gaspar Sevinier in San Sebastián and Bayonne, presumably enclosed with her letters to her husband and not forwarded by him;
  • [P 67-P 77]: several ill-tempered letters in French from his son-in-law 'Guerin', to whom he owed money and would not reply;
  • [P 78-P 79]: two from his daughter Maria Guerin;
  • [P 80-P 82]: a bill of lading, a laundry list, and recipes for onion soup etc in French and Spanish;
  • see also [SP 33] Josepha Diaz de Guitian.

[P 83-P 138]: Assorted letters and papers. Some of these may possibly have been mail-in-transit, but others could have been in the possession of unidentified crewmen or passengers. [P 137] is a prayer, [P 138] multiplication tables.

Mail in Transit from Cadiz, Seville etc, numbered [1-103A]. May include some which were not mail in transit, but were in the possession of crewmen or passengers. No. 78 contains a coloured engraving on card of St Bernard by Cornelius de Boudt [1660-1738]. (94-103A are still sealed).

[104]: A letter in French from Pierre Prou in Lima to his sister in Saint Domingue, dated 1746. It seems unlikely that this was from La Ninfa; it was probably mixed up with these papers by the court or subsequently.

[Decision: condemned as prize, 14 July 1747]