Note note 1 — PREFACE
Reading edition
[1] Public Record Office, C.O. 5:1263, no. 57 XXVI. Paul Dudley was the governor's oldest son. The deposition is one of 55 enclosures in the governor's letter of Nov. 2, 1705, to the Board of Trade respecting his complaints of irregularities in the governments of Rhode Island and Connecticut. Though Dudley's commissions as governor confined his civil authority to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, his commission as vice-admiral (printed in the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, II. 220-224) gave him authority in Rhode Island also. The assembly of that colony, however, claimed the right under their charter to erect admiralty courts of their own, and for their governor the right to commission privateers. Queen Anne wrote to them in March 1704, repealing their act erecting a court, but they held that her letter did not forbid the commissioning of privateers. See Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, III. 508-510, 535-540.