Legal

Relative disadvantages, 1709

31st August 2016
An Act of the Privy Council concerning jurats, defining a quorum. In 1709, so many of the jurats had had to stand down in a case concerning prizes awarded to the Marlborough privateer that none had been left to judge the case. They had been stood down because they were related to either the plaintiffs or the defendants. This transcription comes from a MS notebook, Lists of privateers and prizes, in the Library collection.

A ship's captain is taken hostage, April 1748

4th February 2016
 ‘April 1748. A prize, with wine and brandy, and a ransomer of £1000, taken by the Hanover privateer of Guernsey,’ reported in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1748. Ransoming captured prizes was a practice favoured by Guernsey privateers in the earlier years of privateering, often with an eye to selling on a valuable cargo, but frowned upon by the British authorities, who preferred prizes to be brought into port to be officially 'condemned.' When challenged upon the reason for their not having followed the authorized procedure, the Guernseymen would often answer that at the time they had been prevented by 'a contrary wind.'

Engagement of Thomas Le Marchant and Marie Marthe Mauger, 1740

11th November 2015
Marie's father Charles Mauger settles money upon her, half of which is to be given to her husband the day after their marriage. This money is to be managed by her new husband, Thomas Le Marchant, for her benefit only, and will always remain hers and will pass to her direct heirs. The remaining money will be given to her, or to her direct heirs, after her father's  death, once again to be invested on her and her family's behalf. This was one of the ways that Guernsey families retained their interests in their own estate and properties, and which enabled women to have rights to their own property after their husband's death. A fiancé could himself settle monies or property on his intended upon their engagment, in the form of gages, or pledges, hers to keep if they married, or a douaire, or dowry, which on the event of his death she could claim from his estate.

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