The Wreck and the Fine

In September 1678 a French ship was wrecked on the Nantucket shoals, at the east end of the island. ^{[1] [3]} She had been "cast away on this Island by some of Capt. Bernard Lamoyn's Men," and she left behind a cargo of hides and some Dutch prisoners, who stayed on the island at the magistrate's charge. ^[4] The records never give her name. One of Tristram Coffin's letters calls her "the priuatears ship," which suggests a prize taken by a privateer, but no record says so outright. ^[2]

Why a New York court

Nantucket was not yet part of Massachusetts. In 1664 Charles II granted his brother James, Duke of York, a territory that included the islands, with the right of government. ^[10] Tristram Coffin's own commission as chief magistrate came from New York, from Governor Francis Lovelace, in 1671. ^[11] New York made Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the islands near them into Dukes County on 1 November 1683, and they passed to Massachusetts only under its second charter, granted on 7 October 1691, which arrived in 1692. ^[12] A wreck on Nantucket in 1678 was a matter for the Duke's governor at New York.

The governor's order

The island then belonged to the Duke of York, and its governor was Sir Edmund Andros at New York. On 25 October 1678 Andros ordered the magistrates to see that the wreck's lading was brought ashore, "Duely Inventoryed. & secured," until the owners' and salvors' claims could be settled, and "that nothing bee disposed of, unlesse upon acc't to the Savers." ^[2]

By then Tristram Coffin, the island's chief magistrate, had already made his own arrangements. His statement, recorded by William Worth on 14 November 1678, says that the first salvors gave the hides up, because "they accounted the hids not worth the saveing." Two or three days later "James Coffin and John Coleman" asked "whether I would permit them to take out hids out of the Ship at the East End of the Island and to have the hids for thare Labour." Tristram agreed, on condition that whoever worked with them would account to him for any damage he suffered. The hides were sold. ^[3] James Coffin was Tristram's son.

The court

Nearly two years later, on 28 August 1680, a Court of Admiralty sat at Nantucket: Capt. Cæsar Knapton, Capt. Richard Hall, Mr. John West and Capt. John Gardner. ^[4] It found that Tristram had sold "two thousand and sixteen Hydes," at four shillings a hide, £403 4s, with a cable, a sail, hawsers and an anchor, £477 14s in all, "for which no Claime hath bin made according to Law." Wreck goods belonged to the Duke. The court declared Coffin's "Actings Proceedings in disposing of the said Goods, are contrary to Law," allowed him a fifth for salvage and his costs for the Dutch prisoners, and ordered him to pay the governor "three hundred forty-three Pounds ten Shillings." ^[4] The record's own arithmetic is a little off; its figure is the one given here.

Captain John Gardner was not a neutral member of that court. In Starbuck's history of the island he was "probably the most forceful … of the Insurrectionists," the half-share men who had fought the original purchasers for a decade, and the opposition was "not unfairly, the Gardner faction," with Tristram Coffin at the head of the other party. ^[7] He was also the Long brothers' kin: the brother of their 10th great-grandfather Richard Gardner, and so their 11th great-uncle. ^[13]

The letter

Two days after the judgment Tristram wrote to Andros.

"I humblie intreat your Exelency to consider yt in on Respect my weeacknes I hope may bee a littell born with: for I did tender diuerse Persones the on halfe to saue the other halfe, and I could not get any to doe it … for had not my Sonn, James Coffyn borrowed Money and ingaged for the rest of my Bill, I could not have done it, but I must have gone to Prison. Now I humblye intreat your Excelency to heare my louinge Nighbor, Capt John Gardner, in my behalfe." ^[5]

He signed it "Tristram Coffyn." ^[5] The man he asked the governor to hear was the leader of the faction he had fought. ^[7]

The composition

On 6 November 1680 Andros approved a settlement made between Coffin and the four members of the court, Gardner among them, "for the sume of one hundred and fifty Pound, halfe of which is payd; and on paymt of the other halfe, secured by his Sonn's Obligacon." ^[6] The fine fell from £343 10s to £150, and James's bond secured the rest. Starbuck, writing in 1924, thought it "seems to have ended the unfriendliness between Mr. Coffin and Captain Gardner," who "had most charitably come to his relief." ^[8]

Tristram Coffin died on Nantucket in October 1681: on the 2nd by the town's record of deaths, on the 3rd by the court and inventory records, which Allen Coffin judged the better evidence. ^{[9] [8]} John Gardner wrote to New York in February 1682 of "Mr. Cofens death who died October last," and recommended "Mr. James Cofen" for the vacant place. ^[8]

Next

The quarrel behind the court is told in The Coffin–Gardner Feud, and the next generation's peacemaker in Mary Coffin Starbuck, Tristram's daughter.