r Ogle.]

ADMIRALTY COURTS.

_118. John Menzies to the Secretary of the Admiralty (?). July 20,
1721._[1]

[Footnote 1: London, Privy Council, Unbound Papers, 1:47, copy;
probably the original was addressed to the secretary to the Admiralty.
John Menzies, a Scotsman and a member of the Faculty of Advocates of
Edinburgh, was judge of the vice-admiralty court for New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, from Dec., 1715, to his death in
1728. See Mass. Hist. Soc., _Proceedings_, LIV. 93-94.]

_Copy_

_Sir_

Since I transmitted to you Copies of my Decrees with reference to
Captain Smart's Seizure when in this place,[2] I have not given you
the trouble of any Information of my Proceedings, or Complaints, The
Provincial Judges in Colonel Shute's Government and I having come to a
better understanding in relation to Prohibitions, by his Countenance
in Complyance with their Lordships Order.[3]

[Footnote 2: Capt. Thomas Smart of H.M.S. _Squirrel_. _Publications
Col. Soc. Mass._, VIII. 179; _Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial_,
III. 30.]

[Footnote 3: There was constant friction between admiralty judges and
common-law judges in America as there had been in England. In 1726
Judge Menzies was expelled from the legislature of Massachusetts for
stoutly standing by the complaints he had made to the Admiralty on
this subject. A discussion of one of them, by Richard West, counsel to
the Board of Trade, is printed in Chalmers, _Opinions_ (ed. 1858), pp.
515-519.]

This comes that the Lords Commissioners for Executing the Office of
Lord High Admiral may be informed of a Case that hath lately occurred
within the jurisdiction of Admiralty contained in my Commission,[4]
Namely, One Benjamin Norton of Rhode-Island, and One Joseph Whippole,
a Considerable Merchant of that Colony,[5] did fit out a Brigantine,
and sent her under the Command of the said Norton to the West Indies
last Fall (a Vessel by Common Observation more fit for Pirates than
Trade for which they pretended to Employ her) who Fell in with the
Pirates at St. Lucia in January last, and was (as he saith) taken by
One Roberts a Pirate, though by the Sequel it appears, he is more to
be considered as one of their Assistants and Correspondents, for after
he had remained with them Six or Seven Weeks, They took a Ship Dutch
Built of 250 Tuns Burthen, or thereby, and having Loaded her with
Sugars, Cocoa, Negroes, etc. of very considerable Value, All this they