[Footnote 14: This island seems to be imaginary. In the Atlantic, which seems to be meant, there is no island in 17 deg. S. lat. except St. Helena. In the Indian Ocean there is a Providence Island in 9 deg. S. lat., north of Madagascar. But newspaper accuracy was no greater then than now. Roberts went first to the West Indies, then to the west coast of Africa, where after many exploits he was killed in battle with H.M.S. _Swallow_, 50, in February, 1722. Johnson, first ed., pp. 179-188, 193-214. The captain of the _Swallow_ was knighted for the exploit (capturing 187 pirates), and afterward became famous as Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle.] ADMIRALTY COURTS. _118. John Menzies to the Secretary of the Admiralty (?). July 20, 1721._[1] [Footnote 1: London, Privy Council, Unbound Papers, 1:47, copy; probably the original was addressed to the secretary to the Admiralty. John Menzies, a Scotsman and a member of the Faculty of Advocates of Edinburgh, was judge of the vice-admiralty court for New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, from Dec., 1715, to his death in 1728. See Mass. Hist. Soc., _Proceedings_, LIV. 93-94.] _Copy_ _Sir_ Since I transmitted to you Copies of my Decrees with reference to Captain Smart's Seizure when in this place,[2] I have not given you the trouble of any Information of my Proceedings, or Complaints, The Provincial Judges in Colonel Shute's Government and I having come to a better understanding in relation to Prohibitions, by his Countenance in Complyance with their Lordships Order.[3] [Footnote 2: Capt. Thomas Smart of H.M.S. _Squirrel_. _Publications Col. Soc. Mass._, VIII. 179; _Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial_, III. 30.] [Footnote 3: There was constant friction between admiralty judges and common-law judges in America as there had been in England. In 1726 Judge Menzies was expelled from the legislature of Massachusetts for stoutly standing by the complaints he had made to the Admiralty on this subject. A discussion of one of them, by Richard West, counsel to the Board of Trade, is printed in Chalmers, _Opinions_ (ed. 1858), pp. 515-519.]