Name of Vessel:

Dispatch

Master of Vessel:

Richard Collins Harding

Rig of Vessel:

Date of Capture:

19 April 1777

Place of Capture:

Off the North Carolina coast

Captor:

HM Sloop Merlin

Home Port:

From What Port:

Boston, Massachusetts

To What Port:

Cargo:

Lumber, sugar, oil

Tonnage:

Battery:

Crew:

Owners:

Prize master:

Prize crew:

Ordered Into:

New York, New York

Into What Port:

New York, New York

Date Arrived:

Date Tried:

1777

Date Sold:

Action:

No

Recaptured:

No

Comments: The Dispatch (Richard Collins Harding) was bound from Boston, Massachusetts with a cargo of lumber, sugar and oil. On 19 April 1777 she was captured by HM Sloop Merlin (Commander William C. Burnaby), off the North Carolina coast. Dispatch was sent into New York, New York, where she was tried and condemned in the Vice-Admiralty court in 1777. Her crew was probably among the twenty-nine or forty-two prisoners released at Cape Fear, North Carolina on 2 May 1777.

[NDAR, VIII, 942, 956-957, 997-998, 1053-1063; HCA 32/308/6/1-26]