This record consists of a documentary reference to a shipping casualty which has been assigned to the maritime named location NASH SANDS pending more information which may allow a more precise location for the loss to be assigned.

Event and Historical Information:
The INDIAN PRINCE was wooden sailing ship of 90 tons built in New England in 1739. The customs records of Bristol record voyages to Jamaica (9 December 1742 - 14 January 1744) and voyages which confirm that the ship was engaged in the slave trade for its consortium of owners lead by Walter Logher. For example, on 26 July 1745, the INDIAN PRINCE left Bristol for Bonny, Nigeria, then on to Kingston, Jamaica, selling 27 slaves before arriving back in Bristol on 9 May 1747. On its next voyage, leaving Bristol on 10 September 1747, the intention was to transport 340 slaves from Calabar to Kingston. Records show that 269 slaves from the ship were sold there on 4 July 1748. The ship returned to Bristol on 22 December 1748. The number of slaves the owners and master, Rowland Price, intended to carry on the ship's next voyage was even larger - 350. The INDIAN PRINCE left Bristol on 19 March 1749 and arrived at St Kitts around 26 December 1749. The number of slaves is unknown, but the ship arrived back at Bristol in early June 1750. The cost of the vessel's outfit to carry that many slaves and its outward cargo was reported to valued at £4900.
The INDIAN PRINCE's last voyage was under a new master, John Watkins. The vessel left Bristol on 23 July 1751 bound for Africa and St Kitts. Returning to Bristol, it ran onto the Nash Sands on 30 April 1752. The report printed in Lloyds List on 5 May 1752 noted that the master and crew had all been saved. However the collections of Gwent archives contain correspondence relating to warrants issued by Sir Edmund Thomas, Justice of the Peace, and the subsequent trial at Cardiff Session in August 1752. The charge was Grand Larceny against Evan John and others. The case, as set out in a copy of the legal papers, states 'the late ship INDIAN PRINCE belonging to several merchants of Bristol being a guineaman homeward bound to Bristol from St Kitts in America was unfortunately lost by going ashore ... 4 miles to the westward of Aberthaw... Partly thro the darkness of the night and unskillfullness of the pilot. In a few hours after 3 or 4000 of the inhabitants there and thereabouts came with dearth of saws and other tools and in a violent and inhuman manner boarded the ship and forcibly took thereoff so much of the cargo as they could come at consisting mostly of elephant's teeth, cotton, and ebony, with some liquors...'

Sources include:
Bristol Records Society, 1987, Bristol Africa and the 18th Century slave Trade to America, Vol 2: The Years of Ascendancy 1730-1745, pg125, 143
Bristol Records Society, 1991, Bristol Africa and the 18th Century slave Trade to America, Vol 3: The Years of Decline 1746-1769, pg10, 30, 48
Larn and Larn Shipwreck Database 2002
Lloyds List, 5 December 1752, issue number 1752
D/D/Ed 378/1-2, D/D/Ed 379/1, Gwent Archives
Maritime records transferred from the EH AMIE database, RCAHMW collections

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, November 2013.