Document (Secretarial) Signed, "Skeffn. Lutwidge": [MS.] "Order with Act of Parliament for Impresting [sic] of Seamen" [docketed by recipient].

Three pages, fol., fold marks, ink-stain, foxing but text clear and complete. From the Paterson/Tonyn archive and addressed to Charles William Paterson, Captain of the "De Vries" , informing him of the suspension of various Acts of Parliament (detailed) by which classes of people had previously been exempted from Impressment (the Coal Trade, "the Greenland and Whale Fishery", "And also so much of any other subsequent Act or Acts as grants the like protection to any Person of Persons therein described". Skeffington asks Paterson to "make [the Order] known to the different Ships at Chatham by their taking a Copy of it. [initialled "SL"). In a further Codicil (also initialled) he says, "In executing the above Order, no attaention is to be paid to the Age of Apprentices, or the time they have served at Sea, proviided they are stout and Able enough for the Service & | And no Persons fit to serve are to be discharged unless in the actual [underlined] employment of Government." N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean, pp.496-7, makes the briefest of refernces to this "suspension of all statutory protection for five months" due to the "failure of the Quota Acts". No similar document appeasr to be present in National Archives.