[Extract]

. . . In all the Transactions of America nothing has given me more Concern than that kind of irregular Conduct on bd the Am: Privateers that savours more of Moorish Piracy than Christian Forbearance. We have already many Instances that ought to be reprobated and the perpetrators brot to a Condign Punishment if the United States of Arna means to preserve a National good Character

One I have mentd to the Committee of Secret Correspondence because there was an open violation of the Laws of Nations and a palpable Insult on our real or pretended good Friends the French ² Others have happened in Violation of the Authority of Congress and the Ships & Cargoes belonging to the States of Ama have been seized on Frivolous pretences and sent into their own Ports, those Insults have been overlooked because the States have probably not suffered any great Loss as the Property has reverted to them & the Captors have been supposed to act from good Motives &c but what shall we say for these Plunderers when Individuals, honest Industrious Men, Friends to the Freedom & Independence of Arna lose their Property Credit & reputation by these Depredations, & the Misrepresentations they make to Cover their own Villainies, indeed my good friend if we do not take some effectual measures to punish the guilty and put a Stop to this kind of Arbitrary Thieving we shall be Sharers in their Guilt and probably incur the Suspicion of being Sharers in the Plunder.

I am led into these remarks by a letter from our Friend Hewes who has had two Vessells taken on the high Seas by Am: Privateers on no better pretence than the Captains pretending the Owners were Tories, the last of them is particularly mentd and described by Mess Hewes & Smith in their letter to me of the 13 Decr a copy of which is enclosed,3 and when Congress have leisure I wish you would propose some Salutary Measures to put a Stop to these Growing Evils. I think the Captains & owners of Privateers shd give Security in very large Sums, and every State be answerable to those who grant Corns to, this wod make the latter cautious & villains wod find it difficult to deceive them, something I am sure must be done unless we wish to plunder one another & lay all the World under Contribution as a lawless Set of Freebooters, which' God forbid shd ever be the Characteristicks of the Country I love . . .