£1,495.00
Original 1746 manuscript arbitration award concerning a £2,000 London Assurance marine insurance policy on the ship Mentor and a voyage to Martinique. Signed by three arbitrators and retaining their three red wax seals, with contemporary docket identifying the ship and the award. A substantial primary document from the eighteenth-century London maritime insurance market.
An impressive original eighteenth-century manuscript arbitration award concerning a dispute arising from the insurance of the ship Mentor, dated 20 September 1746.
Written in an accomplished legal secretarial hand across a large folded sheet of laid paper, the document records an arbitration between the Governor and Company of the London Assurance and Jacob Albert of London, merchant, relating to a marine insurance policy on the ship Mentor and her voyage to Martinique.
The dispute concerned a policy effected for £2,000, a substantial commercial sum in 1746. The document states that the Mentor was insured in connection with her voyage to Martinique and records the differences that subsequently arose between the insurer and Jacob Albert concerning the policy and the ship’s loss.
The matter was submitted to three arbitrators:
Thomas Winterbottom
Calverley Bewicke
Charles Holzendorff
Their award required the London Assurance to pay £1,280 in full settlement, subject to the terms recorded in the instrument.
The document concludes with the signatures of all three arbitrators, each accompanied by an exceptionally attractive red wax seal, still substantially intact. It is additionally witnessed and signed by George Schutz, Notary Public, and Bezaliel Knight.
The contemporary docket on the verso reads:
“Mr Thos Winterbottom / Calverley Bewicke & Charles Holzendorff / Award / Relating to the Ship Mentor / Dated 20 of 7ber 1746.”
The document survives with its original folds and characteristic edge wear, including losses and short tears principally affecting the margins and folds. The manuscript remains highly legible, while the three surviving wax seals provide exceptional visual and historical appeal.
Author / Issuing Parties: Thomas Winterbottom, Calverley Bewicke & Charles Holzendorff
Year: 1746
Edition: Original Manuscript Arbitration Award
Place: London
Date: 20 September 1746
Medium: Manuscript in ink on laid paper, signed and sealed
Subject: Marine insurance dispute concerning the ship Mentor and a voyage to Martinique
In September 1746, London was at the centre of an increasingly sophisticated international trading and insurance system. Ships leaving Britain for the Caribbean carried valuable cargoes across waters threatened by storms, privateers, warfare and simple maritime catastrophe.
Against that background, the ship Mentor was insured for a voyage involving Martinique.
The insurer was no obscure underwriter. The document specifically names the Governor and Company of the London Assurance—one of the great institutional insurance enterprises established in London during the early eighteenth century.
A policy valued at £2,000 had been effected in the name of London broker John Sole for the account of merchant Jacob Albert. The Mentor subsequently became the subject of a claim, and disagreement arose concerning the insurer’s liability.
Rather than allowing the dispute to proceed indefinitely through the courts, the parties placed the matter before three London arbitrators: Thomas Winterbottom, Calverley Bewicke and Charles Holzendorff.
Their decision survives here.
After considering the policy, obligations and circumstances of the loss, they ordered payment of £1,280 to Jacob Albert’s representatives in settlement.
On 20 September 1746, the three men signed the award and pressed their individual seals into red wax.
Nearly three centuries later, those seals remain attached.
The result is more than an eighteenth-century legal document. It is direct documentary evidence of the machinery that underpinned Britain’s maritime economy: merchant, broker, ship, Caribbean voyage, insurance company, loss, arbitration and settlement, all preserved within a single original instrument.
This manuscript combines several collecting areas that rarely come together so effectively.
First is its marine insurance history. It documents an actual eighteenth-century insurance dispute rather than merely discussing insurance practice in theory.
Second is its connection with the London Assurance, placing the document within the formative period of institutional British insurance.
Third is the maritime and colonial dimension: the underlying policy concerned the ship Mentor and a voyage involving Martinique, giving the document relevance to Atlantic commercial and Caribbean history.
Perhaps most importantly from a collector’s perspective, it is also a visually impressive object. The elegant manuscript hand, large format, multiple signatures and three surviving red wax seals immediately communicate its eighteenth-century origin.
The unusually detailed contemporary endorsement is another significant feature. Even when folded, the document identifies the arbitrators, its purpose, the ship Mentor, and the date of the award.
An excellent primary-source document for collections concerned with maritime history, insurance, eighteenth-century London, British commerce, Caribbean trade or manuscript legal history.
