[Extract]

Their [the American] harbours by the spring will swarm with privateers. An Admiral is appointed, a court established, and the 3d instant, the Continental flag on board the Black Prince, opposite Philadelphia, was hoisted. Many of the Captains of those vessels, in the last war, proved their intrepidity to the world by their prizes, and some of them have already taken many valuable prizes which Government had ordered to Boston, and thereby must have much distressed the troops; all which the prints will particularize.

And, my Lord, how is it possible for all store-ships to escape a fleet so large, which at this time, I firmly believe, is composed of fifty sail, and by next spring I shall not marvel if their fleet be doubled.

The ship-carpenters are very busy in getting the rest of the privateers ready, and also other hands to equip them wholly for sailing.

Some harbours are blocked up, batteries before others erected as abovementioned, and when the icy impediments are dissolved in their harbours, no marvel, my Lord, if some of the British armament, as well as transports or storeships, be taken. About an hundred privateers, with the most intrepid marines, and those persons who last natural war immortalized their names, again chosen for captains, are, touching their schemes, no contemptible enemy by sea.