[Philadelphia]
[Extract]
Sunday 14 June [1778]. Everything wears the face of leaving this place soon. many of the horses are carried over, The Commissioners baggage are Shipping.1 This day the unfinished vessels left on the stocks were burnt. Those who have visited Govr. Johnston say he talks high in favr of the rebels, he has given out some pamphlets said to be wrote by his brother justifying the opposition.2 The Vigilant is the only ship [illeg.] here.3 The Roebuck lys below redbank.4 That ship has [constantly?] been an Asylum for the distressed loyalists, no man is more hurt by the face of affairs than Capt Hammond. Constant in the line of duty, had the Command been vested in him I have the best reason to believe there would not have been an inlet unexplored, or a rebel craft left between this & Cape Charles. . . .
D, UkLi, Parker Family Papers, Captain Parker's Journal during the American War in the form of letters to Charles Steuart.
1. The horses had been "carried over" the Delaware River; the "Commissioners" were members of the Commission for Quieting Disorders in America—commonly referred to as the Carlisle Peace Commission.
2. George Johnstone, former governor of West Florida and member of the Carlisle Peace Commission. His brother was William Pulteney, a Member of Parliament. The pamphlet was undoubtedly William Pulteney's Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs with America, and Means of Conciliation (London, 1778).
3. H.M. armed ship Vigilant, Comdr. Brabazon Christian, commander.
4. H.M. frigate Roebuck, Capt. Andrew Snape Hamond, commander. Red Bank, New Jersey, is some eight miles down the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
