A Commission “To Mr John Ballett, hereby appointed Commander of His Majesty's Sloop the Otter"

A printed and manuscript commission on parchment, appointing John Ballett as commander of H.M.S. Otter, three blind stamped seals, signed by Secretary to the Admiralty Thomas Corbett, along with Bedford, Arton and Duncannon, mailing folds, ink aged, age related soiling, 280 x 315mm, 18th January, 1747

A commission from the King George’s War, (1744-48), the inconclusive third struggle between France and Great Britain for mastery of the North American continent.

In the summer of 1748 several Spanish and French privateers caused panic among the British colonists by cruising off the mouth of the Delaware Bay a year after a French privateer who had entered Delaware Bay succeeded in the capture of several vessels. The H.M.S. Otter, under command of Captain Ballett, was ordered to engage a Spanish ship carrying an escaped prisoner of war. However the Otter was unable to pursue the privateer due to the damage received from a large French ship the sloop had recently encountered.

After four years the warring parties were tired of the costly and vain struggle. Receiving little effective military aid from either mother country, the war came to an end when France and Great Britain signed the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). The territories conquered during the war were restored, but important colonial questions failed to be resolved.

[Britannica, “King George’s War”, Ashmead: History of Delaware County, pp.32-33]