Whitehall 5th. June 1778.
Sir
Advice having been received this Morning, that the French Squadron from Toulon consisting of Eleven Sail of the Line, One Fifty Gun Ship, and Five Frigates, under the command of the Count D’Estaign,1 passed the streights of Gibraltar on the 16th. of last Month, and were left on the 19th. steering to the South Westward. I have dispatched this by Express to overtake the Packet, in order to give You intelligence of this Event, in hopes that as the French Squadron was so long detained in the Mediterranean, they may find it necessary to stop at the Canary or Western Islands,2 and thereby give an opportunity for this Account to reach your hands before they arrive in North America, if their destination be, as it is supposed for Boston, And I am further to acquaint You that Vice Admiral Byron with Thirteen Ships of the Line is at Plymouth Sound, on his Way to New York with Orders to pursue Mr. D’Estaign wherever he may be sailed to.3 I am Sir Your Obedient [&c.]
Signed, Geo. Germain
L, UkLPR, PRO 30/55, General Sir Guy Carleton Papers, vol. 11, no. 1214. Addressed at bottom of first page: “Sir Henry Clinton.”
1. On the composition of the fleet commanded by Vice-amiral comte d’Estaing, see d’Estaing to Gabriel de Sartine, 18 May 1778, in NDAR 12: 717–20.
2. D’Estaing’s fleet did not stop at the Canary Islands or the Western Islands, better known as the Azores.
3. See Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to Vice Adm. John Byron, this date, above.
