A collection of documents relating to the privateering expedition of the AMBUSCADE in 1762/3. The includes articles of agreement between the crew and the owners, a letter from the captain explaining what went wrong during the attack on Colonia del Sacramento with a list of wounded from the expedition, and an agreement concerning the payment of Roberts’ debts to one of the owners. The collection also includes the will of William Roberts and a lease agreed by one of his descendants, also named William Roberts.

Administrative / biographical background
The collection relates to the privateer AMBUSCADE and its captain William Roberts. The AMBUSCADE was granted letters of marque by George III to undertake a cruise against the French and Spanish during the Seven Years War. Privateers, often confused in popular imagination with pirates, were a vital part of naval strategy during the 17th and 18th centuries, both for the British and the French. Their chief popularity lay in their ability to damage the trade of an enemy whilst conferring no financial risk on a government. The AMBUSCADE’s owners, John Hutchinson, John Cook and Samuel Waller, owned a second privateer, the LORD CLIVE, and employed Roberts and John McNemara as captains of the two ships. The AMBUSCADE and LORD CLIVE led the River Plate expedition in South America in 1762/3, towards the end of the Seven Years War. The Spanish and Portuguese had joined the conflict in 1762 as allies of the French and British respectively. Early in 1762 Spain had led an campaign, the First Cevallos expedition, against the Portuguese in the Banda Oriental (now Uruguay) and captured the Portuguese city of Colonia del Sacramento (referred to as Novo Colonia in the documents). When the LORD CLIVE and AMBUSCADE arrived in Rio de Janeiro in November 1762, they moved to attack sites held by held Spanish holdings in the River Plate area, accompanied by a squadron from the Portuguese Governor of Rio de Janeiro. Buenos Aires and Montevideo at the mouth of the River Plate were well defended by the Spanish so the expedition turned to Colonia del Sacramento and began bombarding the city on the 6th January 1763. This attack backfired when the LORD CLIVE was hit by fire from the city’s gun battery and exploded, killing its captain and the majority of its crew. The AMBUSCADE escaped back to Rio and thus, with the signing of the peace treaty shortly afterwards, Roberts lost his opportunity to capture any prizes for the ship’s crew or owners.