Page 62 - Fenning_Scoland

1691 Ship Letters from Amsterdam to Leith

The 1660 Act of Parliament [of England] required that letters brou~ht into England, Scotland and Ireland by private ship be handed to the postmaster of
the nearest post town for onward transmission. Whether, in the 17 Century, Scottish ports enforced this rule is questionable. In any event, an exception
was provided for under the Act, allowing a letter to be delivered from the ship to its destination by a messenger 'sent on purpose'.
Scotland had a healthy maritime trade with the Low Countries but it appears that few 1 ?'h Century ship letters brought into Scottish ports have survived.

These two letters are addressed to a Dutch skipper, Tjeerdt Jelles, residing at the house of a Mr Farger in Leith. Captain Jelles was staying there
1
awaiting the outcome of a petition he had lodged with the Privy Council of Scotland and which had been heard by the Council on 16 h June 1691. The
subject of the petition was the shipwreck and loss of cargo of the ship Crowned Raven off the coast of Assynt, Sutherland.
From the 131 h July 1691 letter from Mr Jean Dupeyrou in Amsterdam to Skipper Jelles in Leith and the records of the Privy Council of Scotland of that
year the full story of the Captain's predicament can be pieced together:

Earlier in 1691, Tjeerdt Jelles had loaded his ship, the Crowned Raven, in Riga on the Baltic coast with a cargo of several sorts of timber, such as masts and
knappell and some hemp and lint. Knappell was pieces of board like split oak that was used by coopers for making barrel staves. The ship's destination was Lisbon,
Portugal and probably the knappell was required there for making wine casks.

After setting sail and travelling around the north coast of Scotland the ship ran into stonns. The way the letter-writer, Mr Jean Dupeyrou, described It was 'being at
sea {you] had such storms and thunder that you took fright and sought land, where on approach you had an accident, your ship striking a rock where It was wrecked

along with Its cargo'. Clearly, Mr Dupeyrou was not a happy man!
The Privy Council records take up the story: 'being cast in upon the north coast of Scotland among the Islands thereof (to wit Assynt) and there being a leak struck
in the said ship before ever she came to land [she] was overflowed with water, yet by the providence of Almighty God the ship and men with the freight [got] to

shore'.
However, although the sailors were saved, the ship and the freight did not fare so well, as the Privy Council noted: 'thereafter the country people came down and
broke all the said ship to pieces, where the poor petitioner [Skipper Jelles] Jost both his pass and [his] bills of lading". The same event was described more

colourfully in Dupeyrou's letter to Jelles: what had been saved has 'fallen into the hands of wild people [who] are those that still support King James' ... 'I think that all
is ten times lost and it would be better that all was sunk in the sea'. The 'greatest part of that you have sa/ved had been stolen so that you and your crew had to flee
to save your lives, all left out of fear of falling into trouble with the wild outlaws'.

It appears that the 'country people' and 'wild outlaws' were highlanders of the Clan McKenzie and the Privy Council stated that 'a good part of the goods is
preserved in the keeping of Mr. John Mckenzie, chamberlain to the Earl of Seaforth'.

The Privy Council's ruling was that 'the Lords give power to Ross of Balnagoune to make enquiry If the goods truly belong to the petitioner and to cause those in
whose hands they shall be found to deliver them to the petitioner if he find they belong to him'.

It is not known how much, if any, of Skipper Jelles's cargo was eventually recovered for him but it can be sunnised, given the autonomy that the Earl of Seaforth
exercised In Suther1and in 1691, probably not much of it!

Acknowl&dgement: Mr Phi/Ip Longbottom for transletlng the 13 July 1691 /etter from Dutch Into Engllsh
3rd July 1691 (top) & 131t1 July 1691 (lower) ship letters. Carried by I private ship from
Amsterdam to Leith and, as allowed under the 1660 Act, delivered directlr to
Captain Tjeerdt Jelles, presently in the house of Mr Djords Farger in Leith rar Edinburgh