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The Virginia Gazette Foreign News May 4, 1739
Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
What is this article about?
Capt. Jason Vaughan of the Sarah recounts being taken by a Spanish man-of-war off Cape Anthony in June 1738, carried to Havana and later Cadiz, where his ship and cargo, worth £9000, were sold for a fraction of their value; an appended note protests that a king's ship, not a guarda costa, took her.
Quality green show the numbers
Measured from the scan
— how cleanly the OCR engine read the characters
- Mean ink quality
- 98.0% The length-weighted average confidence across the OCR lines — the mean of exactly the per-line scores whose tails the two figures below report. Typical is 99%.
- Illegible ink
- 0.0% Text sitting in OCR-detected lines that scored below 80% confidence — very shaky reads. Weighted by line length, so one long bad line counts for more than a short one.
- Uncertain ink
- 1.4% Text in lines that scored 80–90% — somewhat shaky reads.
- Matches source
- 96.66% How closely the served text matches the raw OCR of the same boxes, letter by letter, after collapsing spacing and case. This measures agreement, not correctness: the OCR is often wrong and the extractor corrects it, so 100% does not mean perfect, and a low figure usually means poor scan text was rewritten rather than that text was lost (length vs source shows loss).
- Length vs source
- 99.69% Below 100% means text was dropped from the OCR; above means text was added to make it read.
Assembled by the extraction model
— whether the stitched-together text holds up; catches layout and segmentation errors, which the scores above cannot see
- Transcription confidence
- 96.0% (typical 96%) How cleanly the extractor could assemble what it was given. Low here with clean ink scores points at layout analysis — the characters were read correctly but grouped or ordered wrongly.
- Comprehension
- 90.0% Whether the piece reads coherently start to finish. Can stay high while transcription confidence drops, when only part of the component is affected.
Clipping
Full Text
LONDON, January 9.
Extract of a Letter from Capt. Jason Vaughan, of the Sarah, dated from Fort Catalina in Cadiz, December 4, 1738.
I Sailed from Port Royal in Jamaica the 1st of June last, bound to Bristol; but on the 29th of the same Month, being in the Latitude of 24 Degrees 28 Minutes, Cape Anthony bearing South and by East, distant 55 Leagues, I was chased by a Spanish Man of War, who soon came up with me, and having fired at me several Times, I brought too; they ordered me to send my Boat aboard, which I accordingly did, but they detained my Men, and sent 18 of theirs in the Boat, who ordered me out of my Ship, with all my Men, on board their own, which carried us to the Havanna, where my Ship came some Days after. I was there detained a Prisoner three Months, and then put on board one of their Ships and brought to this Port, and from thence to this Castle. The Consul here offered to be Security for my Appearance, if I could have the Liberty of walking about the City; but that Favour could not be obtained; so I have, by this Post, wrote to the British Minister in Madrid.
My Ship and Cargo was worth 9000l. Sterling; the latter was sold before I left the Havanna, for about 1/20th Part of what it cost; and the Ship was also put up for Sale.
P. S. I was bound from Jamaica, and was on my Passage home when taken, and had not been in any Port.
Reader, observe, this Ship was not taken by a Guarda Costa, but by a King's Ship. It has been mentioned, that the Convention was to produce great Advantages to our Merchants!---- The Lord open the Eyes of the P-----t and our Mouths shall shew forth their Praise!
Extract of a Letter from Capt. Jason Vaughan, of the Sarah, dated from Fort Catalina in Cadiz, December 4, 1738.
I Sailed from Port Royal in Jamaica the 1st of June last, bound to Bristol; but on the 29th of the same Month, being in the Latitude of 24 Degrees 28 Minutes, Cape Anthony bearing South and by East, distant 55 Leagues, I was chased by a Spanish Man of War, who soon came up with me, and having fired at me several Times, I brought too; they ordered me to send my Boat aboard, which I accordingly did, but they detained my Men, and sent 18 of theirs in the Boat, who ordered me out of my Ship, with all my Men, on board their own, which carried us to the Havanna, where my Ship came some Days after. I was there detained a Prisoner three Months, and then put on board one of their Ships and brought to this Port, and from thence to this Castle. The Consul here offered to be Security for my Appearance, if I could have the Liberty of walking about the City; but that Favour could not be obtained; so I have, by this Post, wrote to the British Minister in Madrid.
My Ship and Cargo was worth 9000l. Sterling; the latter was sold before I left the Havanna, for about 1/20th Part of what it cost; and the Ship was also put up for Sale.
P. S. I was bound from Jamaica, and was on my Passage home when taken, and had not been in any Port.
Reader, observe, this Ship was not taken by a Guarda Costa, but by a King's Ship. It has been mentioned, that the Convention was to produce great Advantages to our Merchants!---- The Lord open the Eyes of the P-----t and our Mouths shall shew forth their Praise!
What sub-type of article is it?
Naval Affairs
Trade Or Commerce
What keywords are associated?
Spanish Seizure
Captain Jason Vaughan
Ship Sarah
Havana Detention
What entities or persons were involved?
Capt. Jason Vaughan
Where did it happen?
Cadiz
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Cadiz
Event Date
December 4, 1738
Key Persons
Capt. Jason Vaughan
Outcome
ship and cargo worth £9000; cargo sold for about 1/20 of cost; vaughan detained prisoner three months.