such, he
nominally presided over the High Court of Admiralty; finding the need
of having its activities supplemented by additional prize courts in
the colonies, and instructed by this and similar reports, he on Dec. 7
applied for authority under the great seal to commission colonial
governors (vice-admirals) to hold prize courts.]

DOCTORS COMMONS,[2] November 27th, 1702.

[Footnote 2: Doctors' Commons (see ch. VIII. of _Sketches by Boz_ and
ch. XXV. of _David Copperfield_), near St. Paul's, was the
headquarters of the doctors of the civil law and of the admiralty and
other civil-law courts.]

_Sir_,

The matter in yours of the 18th instant being of a Nature That was
little knowne to Me, It seemed proper to take longer time to consider
thereof, than otherwise would have been decent, for the Information of
His Royall Highness as to the Power of the Vice-Admiralls of the
Forreigne Plantations.

I humbly conceive it plaine, That they can have no Authority to
condemne Prizes, in their Commissions from the Lord Admirall,[3] for
He has none in that Patent which constitutes Him Lord Admirall of
England.

[Footnote 3: A typical commission of a vice-admiral (Barbados, 1667)
may be seen in the _Publications_ of the Colonial Society of
Massachusetts, II. 187-198.]

And you may please to call to mind, that the Power by which Ships are
adjudged Prize, Proceeds from a Commission for that purpose
particularly granted, under the Great Seale, to his Royall Highness.

And as to what may be most proper for the condemning of Prizes in
those parts, I humbly conceive it cannot be Regularly done, but by an
Authority grounded upon a Commission under the Broad Seale.

All which I humbly submitt with the Assurance That I am

Sir

Your must Humble Servant

GEO. BRAMSTON.

To be sent to Lord Nottingham[4] if it came from him.

[Footnote 4: The Earl of Nottingham was one of the two secretaries of
state.]

PRIVATEERS AT MARTINIQUE.

_103. Letter to Boston News Letter. May 8, 1704._[1]

[Footnote 1: A specimen of news of privateering in Queen Anne's War
from one of the earliest issues of our first established newspaper;
from the _Boston News-Letter_ of May 15, 1704. That newspaper was
founded by John Campbell, postmaster of Boston, son of Kidd's friend
Duncan Campbell (see doc. no. 75). The first issue was for the week
from Monday, April 17, to April 24, 1704. The text is taken from the
file of the _News-Letter_ poss