Re: My previous post: "I have also traced "Mrs Bridget Watson". Another mystery! She was born "Maria Elizabeth Crommelin" but christened "Bridget Watson"! She eventually married Mordaunt Ricketts! What the connection with Seraphina was I don't know - yet! I have now done some further research and the above source was incorrect. "Bridget Watson" and "Maria Elizabeth Crommelin" were two different people. In Seraphina's will dated 1810 she says: "To Mrs Bridget Watson at this time residing under the protection of Mordaunt Ricketts Esqr HC(?) Civil Service I leave the Sum of Sicca Rupees four Hundred (Scks 400)". So Bridget was probably a friend of Seraphina's and also probably an "Anglo-Indian" (in new speak). Mordaunt married the next year (1811) to "Maria Elizabeth Crommelin". The search for Bridget continues because her two daughters may have gone there after her death before being sent back to UK.

I have now found an 1810 memorandum to Seraphina's will leaving funds to Mordaunt Ricketts for Bridget Watson for the support of her 2nd daughter Harriot Slessor. But where is her eldest daughter Charlotte Hunter?

Found her! 1809 • Ceylon to UK
ADDITIONAL LIST OF PASS NO FEES ON THE HOMEWARD. To Europe. —Mrs. Tlays.—Misses Charlotte Hunter, and Kliza Stewart, and Master John Stewart. (see Gallery)

I found the above on-line in The Calcutta Gazette July/October 1809. However the scanning is a mess. Does anyone have a true copy? I'd like to know the date, the departure port and the ship.
Richard

Do you mean in the British Newspaper Archive online indexes?

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

If you haven't registered with the site before, they initially allow access to 3 pages free of charge.

However, I am unsure as to why you have a date span of July/Oct 1809 as I would have thought you would have the date of the particular edition of the Calcutta Gazette if your information had come from the BNA.

I did try and find the published date, but (as you said) the OCR recognition seems particularly bad for 1809 and I couldn't locate any of those names or partial names or other words etc to lead me to the correct article. I imagine "PASS NO FEES" should read passengers, but that didn't help me!

I found this on FMP:

Madras Courier 20 September 1809

To Europe. - Mrs Hayes, - Misses Charlotte Hunter, and Eliza Stewart, and Master John Stewart.

lol I was so focused on looking in the 'correct' paper, I didn't look in any others!!

So it might be: Freighted Ship Warren Hastings, Capt. C. P. Macfarlane

or Frei:hted,Ship Povne, Capt. J. Nichol

depending on how the lists are constructed. I would think the first is the more likely.

The Hampshire Chronicle 19 March 1810 states that the ship Warren Hastings sailed from Madras 13 Oct and arrived at the Cape of Good Hope 24/5 Dec.

With more time there's a good chance of tracking these ship movements via the British papers (FMP).

Merry, it was "Freighted Ship Warren Hastings".

OK thanks Eizabeth, that's what I imagined.

From the Wikipedia page for the Warren Hastings:

Captain C. P. MacFarlane sailed Warren Hastings back to England from Calcutta as an "extra ship", i.e., under charter. She left Calcutta on 11 September 1809, reached Madras on 24 September, and the Cape on 16 December. She was at St Helena on 27 January 1810 and arrived at Portsmouth on 8 April and Blackwall on 24 April.