?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(MASSACHUSETTS.) Proposal to resolve disputed claims over a merchant vessel leaving early colonial Boston. Manuscript document in the hand of notary Robert Howard over his signature. 2 pages, 11 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches; moderate wear at edges and intersection of folds not affecting legibility of text, minor dampstaining. With typed transcript. [Boston], 7 September 1675
Robert Cannon, master of the ship Dove preparing for a voyage out of Boston, was facing objections from a cook named Henry Tickner and a mariner named Matthew Johnson, presumably his crew members, who were apparently claiming some sort of authority on behalf of the ship's owners. Cannon has this proposal drafted and notarized to protect himself legally whether these claims proved valid or not. He requested that the two men file formal evidence of their authority and pay him "reasonable satisfaction for the damage . . . I suffer by quitting my imployment"--or provide him with security to protect him against the owner's claims if their authority proved bogus. Barring that, Cannon "declare my selfe under a necessity to fit out and imploy the ship according to the best advice and incouragement that I can receive from others and to give the owners acc't of . . . my proposals and the cours I may be constrayned to take."
The Boston Public Library holds a related deposition "concerning Robert Cannon, Mathew Johnson, and the ship Dove" dated 10 October 1675.
