Ship Plans, Surveys and Fitting Accounts

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.

1. Scale ship draughts as drawings are effectively absent from the English record for vessels of 1690 to 1725, the national collection at Royal Museums Greenwich being described as holding over one million original ship plans dating back to the early 18th century, with the Admiralty Collection accounting for around 8,000 plans representing approximately 10,000 ships; for hulls of this period the technical record is textual, and no contemporary draught of a vessel sailed under a pirate flag was located in the catalogues consulted. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Collection description and archival catalogue records: Royal Museums Greenwich, "Our collections: Ship plans collection", for the quoted extent and the early eighteenth-century starting date (Confirmed as the museum's statement); the general claim about survival, and the absence of any pirate draught, rest on the catalogues consulted and are Probable
2. The English naval side of the cluster is carried by four classes at The National Archives, Kew: ADM 106, Navy Board: Records, 1650 to 1837, comprising in-letters, indexes and digests, entry books of out-letters, registers and miscellanea; ADM 180, the Navy Board and Admiralty Progress and Dimension Books, 1620 to 1912, registering naval vessels by construction, date and place of launching, refitting, complement and armament, of which ADM 180/1 covers 1694 to 1734 and is indexed; ADM 95, 1688 to 1959, carrying reports on sailing qualities, estimates and orders for shipbuilding and stores and lists of ships built, repaired or building; and ADM 49, 1658 to 1932, with the contracts and estimates, beside ADM 42 for yard wages and ADM 106/3120 for ships lost, sold or converted between 1688 and 1730. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue records: The National Archives, Kew, series descriptions for ADM 106, ADM 180, ADM 95, ADM 49 and ADM 42, and piece descriptions for ADM 180/1 ("Progress books", Book 1, indexed, 1694 to 1734) and ADM 106/3120 ("List and description of ships lost, sold or converted", 1688 to 1730), consulted through Discovery (Confirmed)
3. For merchant and private vessels the equivalent record is customs and prize administration rather than any builder's paper: the Exchequer port books, E 190, 1565 to 1798, record shipping movements and cargoes arranged by port and by customs official rather than by ship and describe no hull structure, while the letter-of-marque declarations in HCA 26, 1689 to 1809, required a commander to declare before the High Court of Admiralty specified details of the ship, its armaments, its crew and its officers, the registers from 1689 to 1783 being internally indexed; there was no compulsory general registration of British merchant shipping before the Shipping and Navigation Act of 1786. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue records and repository research guide: The National Archives, Kew, series descriptions for E 190, Exchequer: King's Remembrancer: Port Books, and for HCA 26, High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Registers of Declarations for Letters of Marque (Confirmed); The National Archives research guide "Merchant Navy ships' records: registration of merchant ships", for the 1786 Act (Confirmed)
4. HCA 26/3/58, dated 11 December 1695, records the commander William Kidd, the ship Adventure Galley, burden 287 tons, crew 70, armament 34 guns and folio 59, with the owners given as Admiral Russell, Robert Levingstone, an unnamed party and William Kidd himself. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue record, item level: The National Archives, Kew, HCA 26/3/58, item description in Discovery, the full description carrying the burden, crew, armament, folio, owners and officers (Confirmed as the content of the declaration; the 1701 trial account gives 30 guns, and the ship record carries both counts). The commonly repeated attribution of the ship's building to a yard at Deptford could not be traced to a catalogued primary reference and is not asserted
5. The Navy Board in-letters document the ships sent against pirates and name Kidd at item level: ADM 106/513/51, of 1697, is a letter from Captain Thomas Warren of the Windsor at the Cape of Good Hope which lists the Adventure Galley among its ships, and ADM 106/513/342, of 12 June 1697, is a long and detailed report from Warren at Cadiz Bay; both are findable because the in-letters were catalogued to item level across the whole run of ADM 106/281 to 1299, 1,019 boxes, the work completed in September 2019. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue records, item level, and project finding aid: The National Archives, Kew, ADM 106/513/51 and ADM 106/513/342, item descriptions in Discovery, both naming Kidd and the Adventure Galley (Confirmed); The National Archives series note for ADM 106 and the Naval Dockyards Society Navy Board Project page, for the run of 1,019 boxes and the September 2019 completion, the project page's figure of 881 boxes being a superseded interim count (Confirmed)
6. The technical record of Blackbeard's flagship is French and archaeological: the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project gives La Concorde as a vessel of 200 tons with sixteen cannon, owned by the Nantes merchant Rene Montaudoin, sailing on 24 March 1717 on her third slaving voyage, on which sixty-one enslaved people and sixteen crew died, leaving 455 aboard at her capture, and gives figures for the disposal at Bequia, 157 Africans retained by Blackbeard and 455 put ashore, that do not reconcile with that survivor count and are carried as unresolved; it states that the date and place of her construction are unclear; the 1718 depositions of Captain Pierre Dosset and his lieutenant are at the Archives Departementales de Loire-Atlantique, Serie B 4578, but the project's own publications cite them incompatibly, one placing both officers at folios 56v to 57v and naming the lieutenant Francois Ernaut, the other placing the lieutenant's deposition of 17 April 1718 at folios 56v to 57 and Dosset's of 13 October 1718 at folios 90v to 91 and naming him Pierre Ernaud. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Project reports and archival citations: Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing, "Historical Background for the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck", QAR-R-09-02, Office of State Archaeology, Raleigh, 2009, for the voyage figures and for both officers at folios 56v to 57v with the lieutenant named Francois Ernaut; Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project reports and publications list, file version 27 September 2023, for the two depositions listed separately at folios 56v to 57 and 90v to 91 with the lieutenant named Pierre Ernaud; Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project, "The Ship's Journey", for the tonnage, armament, ownership, departure date and the stated uncertainty about her construction (Confirmed as the content of each source). The folios and the lieutenant's name remain Unverified, the two publications conflicting and neither having been checked against the current inventory at Nantes