Firstly, apologies if this is not the appropriate place for this sort of post - feel free to let me know of a more appropriate subreddit for this question if you know of one.
Secondly, I am a total amateur when it comes to reading old documents, so I apologise if any of this should be fairly obvious, I am just a bit thick.
I have been doing some research into a naval battle from 1674 in my local area, called the Battle of Ronas Voe. From what I've gathered so far, I've written a Wikipedia article (not required reading for answering this question, just if you're interested)
Basically, a Dutch East India ship was captured by the English Navy and was taken back to England as a prize of war. After it was taken back, a sale was held and various bits and pieces were sold from it.
About a month and a half later, a guy named John Burgess wrote to the navy to report the inventory of the goods taken out of the ship. I took some photos of the letters held in the National Archives, Kew:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
I have tried my best to transcribe them, and I have managed the majority of it I think, however there are still a few things I am unsure about.
OK, my questions:
- Page 1, the three columns on the right - seeing as most items with figures in the columns have the phrase "pvis nett as L est" (which I am assuming is "provisions net value in pounds estimated" my initial thought was that this was pounds, shillings and pence, however there's some odd figures - like the very first item - Barrels of nails - £601, 0s, 14d. 14 pence seems odd when there are only 12 pence in a shilling - why not £601, 1s, 2d? There are some items that have values as high as 21 in the last column. Have I misinterpreted this?
- Page 1 - find the row with the values 10, 1, 13, (hogs bristles). The next row down, Cask with ____ - suins? Would this be swines? This is all I could think of, that would make sense listed next to the hogs bristles. Although, "porke" has already been listed higher up the page - any alternative ideas?
Page 1 - a table of sails is started lower down the page, and the first column header is "Cloths" - is this referring to the number of sails of the same size for each size listed? Seems like a hell of a lot of sails to have aboard - did ships really carry this number of sails? Would these have all been for their own use, or would these have been sold I wonder? Figured it out - Cloths refers to the width of the sails, not the number of sails. Makes much more sense now that I know this!
- Page 1 - the same bottom table, rightmost header is either "Svrs" or "Surs" or "Sons" or something "of Canvass". What full word is being abbreviated there? It's all to do with the material and condition of the sails, such as "Duck" (duck cotton) or "1/2 worn". Any ideas?
Page 2 - 5 items are categorised as "Shroud hausery" - what is this? Whatever it is, it's measured in inches (I assume diameter?) and fathoms (length) Shroud means 4 strands, hawsery is mooring rope. Thanks /u/porpentinepress!
- Page 2 - Is there any discernable difference between a "Cable" and a "Cablett" - is a cablett just a small cable? And I assume these are cables in the sense of reasonably waterproof ropes, used for anchors and things?
Page 3 - very last item listed before John Burgess signs the letter - a small ____? Cordayre? I can't for the life of me think what this could be. Also, 197 of something is involved? I have no idea what this could be. Cordage - thanks /u/porpentinepress! Another new word in vocabulary. I believe it's 197 coils
Any suggestions anyone could provide me on any of these questions, do please let me know. Thanks in advance for your help.