The Owners of the Ship called the Margaret v. Seaton
Date: 26 February 1673 Case No. No 25.
Connivance between confident persons.
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The Ship called the Margaret was found prize, upon these grounds, That she loosed from Amsterdam to France, and from thence returned, with salt, direct to Sweden, and had no pass for either voyage; and though she was bought from Hollanders, yet there was nothing aboard to instruct the alienation; but, now, there is produced an instrument of sale, dated the 14th day of March last, bearing the ship to have been bought by Henry Coal, merchant in Amsterdam, for the use of Margaret Coal his sister, residenter in Sweden; and nothing appearing under Margaret's hand that she gave commission to buy the ship, but that the same was bought by the said Henry, and out-rigged by him; and there was only produced a certificate, from a town in Sweden, before the voyage, that the said Margaret had declared the ship to belong to her, but without an oath; and two certificates, impetrate since the capture, bearing, that she and other owners deponed that the goods belonged to them; which the Lords regarded not, the matter being carried on betwixt the brother, resident in Holland, and the sister, in Sweden; neither would the Lords admit of a probation to instruct the goods to belong to Swedes, not only because of the pregnancy of the evidences, but also that the ship being bought at Amsterdam, since the war, the probation behoved to be there, with which, being enemies, there can be no commission or communication.
