Catalogue description High Court of Admiralty: Instance and Prize Courts: Files of Libels, Allegations, Decrees, Sentences and Miscellaneous Documents

These files contain libels (the plaintiff's statement of claim), allegations (the defendant's plea in reply), decrees and sentences (the judgments of the Court) and many other miscellaneous documents such as exhibits, interrogatories, commissions for the examination of witnesses, etc, writs and taxed bills of costs.

The main series of libels and associated documents covers 1526 to 1739. Other files, containing allegations only, cover 1640 to 1677, 1781-1782 and 1793; and others, containing allegations in prize cases only, cover 1794 to 1814.

Each file contains a hundred cases or so: there is no index, although each libel is numbered.

The libels, in Latin or English, contain the pleadings, and exhibits such as schedules or inventories.

Sentences in prize appeals are in HCA 48

Particular cases in HCA 24/1-69 (1527-1602) are described, and some of the documents transcribed, translated and published in detail, in R G Marsden, Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty, 2 vols, Selden Society VI (1892) and XI (1897). Admiralty jurisdiction is discussed in Hale and Fleetwood on Admiralty Jurisdiction, ed M J Prichard and D E C Yale, Selden Society CVIII (1992).