Your Excellency: After warning me that he did so of his own accord and without orders from his Court, the English Ambassador spoke to me about the frequency with which ships of his Colonies come to our Ports and carry on their usual trade. He indicated how convenient it would be to issue orders forbidding this assistance, as the Portuguese Ministry has now done with respect to that Kingdom. I replied to him saying that I believed that very few came; that they were regarded here as subjects of Great Britain, because it was not possible to tell which were of one party and which of another; that they came in pursuit of a legal, long-established trade; that it did not seem usual to hinder it, above all when they did not carry or seek in exchange goods that England objected to. I recalled to him that the British Cabinet had rejected a proposal Your Excellency made to them last year to turn away from Port Egmond again certain American vessels which, it was supposed, had come there without the sovereign's knowledge. The rejection was based on the position that it would insult the English flag, a thing that would serve the Nation very badly. Lastly, not being able to persuade me that the ships might present themselves under an unknown flag, nor having any evidence of it, he said he would make the appropriate reports. I advise Your Excellency for your information and God grant Your Excellency [&c.]

San Ildefonse, 19 August 1776.²