Kew, August 12, 1775, 20m. past 2 p.m.
Lord Sandwich ー I never doubted that your great activity would soon vanquish any apparent difficulty in engaging the number of transports required for the two present services, and I trust that will secure their being with the utmost expedition fitted out and sent out of the River.
It is but right to be grateful when kindly treated: it is that makes me rejoice that Portsmouth is the first dock which seems returning to its duty. 2 I do not doubt but twenty-one shipwrights having set the example, there will not be a want of hands in that dock in a very few days, which will bring the others to reason.
1. G. R. Barnes and J. H. Owen, eds., The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich First Lord of the Admiralty 1771-1782 (London, 1932), I, 67-68. Hereafter cited as Barnes and Owen, eds., Sandwich Papers.
2. A serious strike among the shipwrights in the Royal dockyards had been in progress for some time.
