Bill of Sale

To be sold on Friday, October 9th, by ten o'clock in the forenoon, the handsome ship L'Invention, of the following dimensions:— Length on lower deck, 135 feet 5 inches; ditto of Keel, 121 feet 3 inches; Breadth, extreme, 27 feet 5 inches; Moulded, 27 feet 1 inch; Height between decks, 4 feet 9 inches; Depth in the hold, 9 feet 4 inches, and admeasures 486 tons.

She is quite new, and was built at Bordeaux, under the immediate care and inspection of Citizen Thibault, a celebrated member of the Society of Arts and Sciences and Belle Lettres; and fitted with four masts, which have been found to answer extremely well, in her sailing even before the wind; she is allowed by the first Master Builders, by whom she has been examined, to be an exceedingly well and fine built Vessel, of a beautiful Form and Model; her Superiority of Sailing had enabled her to elude the Vigilance of our best Frigates, and she was only taken after a Chase of Ten Hours, and the loss of Top Masts in a Fog and heavy Sea, which also prevented her Escape by her Sweeps, worked by an entire new and Novel Machine of singular Simplicity and Effect; she abounds in Stores, which are all new and of the best Materials; has a neat Figure Head; a deep Waist; and is full Coppered to the Wales. Mounts 24 guns, and appears well calculated for an East-India Packet, the Southern or Whale Fishery, or Straits Trade, or any other Business in which Safety and Dispatch are requisite, and is a Prize to His Majesty's Ship of War Immortalité, Henry Hotham, Esq., Commander, taken in Sight of the Arethusa, Thomas Wolley, Esq., Commander, and now lies in the Hamoaze, and will be there delivered.


Plymouth, October 1801.

Transcribed by Lars Bruzelius


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