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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2001-03 > 0983509428


From: "David Thomas" <>
Subject: Re: 17th century travel passes
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 05:03:48 -0000
References: <97ln0i$18c$1@neptunium.btinternet.com>


You have found the official record of the issue of the passport. The State
Papers are the records of the Secretaries of State and you have found the
SofS's record of issuing the document IMHO. Passports were issued to
British-born subjects for a single journey and could be used for any
subsequent journey only if countersigned by the ministers or consuls of the
countries which the holder intended to visit. Possession of a passport,
however, was confined largely to merchants and diplomats, and the vast
majority of those travelling overseas had no formal document. You might
want to check in J C Hotten Original Lists of Persons Emigrating to America,
1600-1700 (London, 1874) which prints the registers of issue of passports.


Chris Dickinson wrote in message <97ln0i$18c$1@neptunium.btinternet.com>...
>A Quaker is his journal refers to 'a pass which we had from the
>Secretary of State, wherein the governors of the several islands
>within the dominions of England, were commanded to let us pass'.
>
>I have found a pass issued to him in the Calendar of State Papers
>for 1690/1 'to go to Gravesend for Barbadoes'.
>
>Does anyone have any idea whether these two passes are likely to
>be the same, or whether the the S-of-S pass was additional?
>
>If the latter: does anyone have any idea where a copy may still
>exist and would such a general pass from the S-of-S have been
>unusual?
>
>Chris
>
>


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