Taken from the book: "Mariners of the American Revolution" by Marion and Jack Kaminkow ISBN# 0806313919 John Sheldon - I see four references to your ancestor (1) as being a Mariner in the ship's company of the "Adventurer" January 23, 1782 with the reference (3 p.213) Apparently he is the third one listed on this page because there is no other reference to decipher what the number three) (2) Then there is a reference to the "Adventurer" with the "Date of Capture" listed as December 1781* (* which means) Those ships for which PRO Reference Number is given are o be found in the High court of Admiralty Prize Court Records Clas 28, BUT UNLESS THERE IS AN ASTERISK, there is no mention of them in the prisoner list. Those without a refernce number are to be found only in the sources used to compile the list of mariners. The dates of capture in the table Marion and Jack Kaminkow provided are usually the dates on which the prisoners were committed, but where an asterisk appears beside the date, this is the actual date of capture. Where the record has been extracted from the prize court the word ante appears, meaning that the ship was captured before this date, whcih is the date on which the case came up in court. It is believed (the authors/researchers: Marion and Jack Kaminkow believe this) that many more names of captured American ships can be found in the Admirals' despatches in the Rublic Record Office and else where and also in the records of the Vice-Admiralty court in NORTH AMERICA and the WEST INDIES, also in the PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. This list of ships that Marion and Jack Kaminkow provided within "Mariners of the American Revolution" ISBN# 0806313919, doesn ot claim to be exhaustive as very entensive research would be needed to compile a complete list from all possible sources. Complete lists will probably appear over the years in "NAVAL DOCUMENTS of the AMERICAN REVOLUTION" which is being published in stages by the Naval History Division. In addtiton to the ships listed as sources within "Mariners of the American Revolution," used to compile the list of mariners, an analysis has also been made of the records of the High Court of Admiralty in the Public Record Office i London, which contain minutes of the sessions held by the court over variouscahptured ships, or prizes. It was expected that in the records of the prize courts would be found data for all the ships mentioned in the list of marines but instead it was found that very few of these ships ever came before the prize court, whilenumerous others, not mentioned in the list, were found. From this it is deduced that most of the ships from whcih the prisoners came were sunk or re-captured by the American or dealt with by a vice-admiralty court elsewhere. The crews of the ships from which no prisoners were brought to England were eitherr all lost or imprisoned elsewhere. So, glad you made this request...I CHECK THIS BOOK WHEN ANYONE MAKES or HAS THIS SAME REQUEST!! There you have it from the Kaminkow brothers' APPENDEX I, concerning the 'List of American Ships Captured by the British During the Revolutionary War.' Rhonda Houston Rhonda Houston -----Original Message----- From: Tom Sheldon (by way of John Robertson <jr@jrshelby.com>) [mailto:tom@twpo.com.au] Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 7:30 AM To: AMERICAN-REVOLUTION-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [A-REV] Adventurer G,day all, Would anyone out there have any information about the American ship "Adventurer" that was captured by the British Royal Navy Ship H.M.S.Comet during the War of Independence, and the crew taken to Plymouth as prisoners of war. Apparentley one of the crew was John Sheldon, my ancestor but I need conformation. Thanks for any help Tom Sheldon Australia ==== AMERICAN-REVOLUTION Mailing List ==== ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237