The ArchivesShipsNew Year's Gift
New Year's Gift
An unresolved ship name: the only securely located bearer is an East India Company vessel of 1613, outside the Golden Age of piracy.
Launchedidentity not establishedTonot established
An unresolved ship name: the only securely located bearer is an East India Company vessel of 1613, outside the Golden Age of piracy.
What the record establishes
Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1724) contains no ship 'New Year's Gift'; the single occurrence of the word 'Gift' is 'a generous Deed of Gift of the Ship and Cargoe, to Davis and the Crew', which is not a ship name1
The people documented in connection with the New Year's Gift name are East India Company voyagers of 1613-1616 (for example painter-stainer Edward Gall and mirror-repairer Robert Young, who died on the voyage; and crew whose wills, proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, survive at The National Archives in the PROB series), not pirates; no master or commander of the ship was established this session2
What the evidence does not settle
No piracy-era vessel of this name has been found in the calendars and narratives searched; newspaper shipping lists and company records remain the best leads.
What the evidence does not settle
Documentary identity
- A piracy-era shipping notice or company record naming New Year's Gift
Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.
Sources for this record
Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.
- Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1724) contains no ship 'New Year's Gift'; the single occurrence of the word 'Gift' is 'a generous Deed of Gift of the Ship and Cargoe, to Davis and the Crew', which is not a ship name Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates
- The people documented in connection with the New Year's Gift name are East India Company voyagers of 1613-1616 (for example painter-stainer Edward Gall and mirror-repairer Robert Young, who died on the voyage; and crew whose wills, proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, survive at The National Archives in the PROB series), not pirates; no master or commander of the ship was established this session Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Modern scholarship; Catalogue record: When the East India Company sent a ship called New Year's Gift to India; British Library: Asian and African Studies (India Office Records repository node)