Navy Board Eastern Department Boston July 2d. 1778
Gentlemen
We have the Honour to hand you by Capt. Ayres1 in the Arnold Packett,2 four Packetts Intrusted to our care for Conveyance by the Honble. Committee for Foreign Affairs.3 we also Inclose the Gazettes of this Town Since our last.4 we wish them Safe to your hands as we presume they will give you all the Important Intelligence of this Country, we shall trouble you no further than to Inform you, that Capt. Ayres has the honour to hold a Captains Commission in the American Navy, & to recommend him to your Notice as an officer upon all Occasions ready to render his best Services to his Country. he has Orders to receive his directions from you for his future Conduct.5 you will please to order him such Supplies as he may have occasion for We have the Honour to be [&c.]
J Warren
L, PPAmP, Benjamin Franklin Papers, vol. 10, fol. 81. Addressed: “The Honble:/The Commissioners from the United/States of America/Paris.” Docketed: “James Warren/Boston July 2d 78/Navy Board."
1. Capt. John Ayres, of Braintree, Massachusetts, was commissioned on 25 Jan. 1776 as captain of the armed schooner Lynch in Washington's Fleet and served until 20 Feb. 1777. William Bell Clark, George Washington's Navy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960), pp. 109 and 197.
2. Brig Arnold.
3. For speculation on the contents of the packets, see Adams Papers 6: 250n, 347, 349n.
4. See Continental Navy Board of the Eastern Department to American Commissioners in France, 8 June, above.
5. Ayres was sick upon his arrival at Bordeaux and died there before 13 Sept. See Ayres to the American Commissioners in France, 29 July, MH-H, Arthur Lee Papers (MS Am 811.4), vol. V, no. 27., and John Bondfield to the American Commissioners in France, 15 Sept., Benjamin Franklin Papers 27: 404.
