Description:

Ships’ muster rolls from 1748 – 1749; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive.
Muster roll no: 78.

Muster roll for the ship, True Blue, sailing from Jamaica, 1749.
The True Blue was one of many merchant ships supplying the colonies with manufactured goods and foodstuffs. At the end of the list is Scipio, presumably an African, possibly a free black sailor. As he had sailed on the True Blue before, he may possibly have been the property of the captain, John Collinall.

The muster roll is a list of all crew signed on for all or part of a voyage, which was used to calculate the money each man should pay to the Sailors’ Hospital Fund (insurance).

The Society of Merchant Venturers is a Bristol-based organisation, which was formed in 1552 as an elite body of merchants involved in overseas trade. The Society still exists today.

Date: 1749

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers