[Extract]

Sir We have already wrote you by this Conveye but we have just recd your favour of the 31st Octr by the Molly Capt [Thomas] Conway arrived safe into Maryland & those of the 3d & 5th Novr by Monsr Blaquiere who is just arrived at Chester. You observe our Tobacco by Capt Stevens cost high & the freight out of the way. had you been here when it was shipped you wou'd not have thought so, indeed none but persons on the spot can have a just Idea of the perpetual changes that take place in every branch of business. When ships that in common times sold for £1000, by a sudden demand are raised in Value to £4000 & Seamens Wages jum[p] from £4 to £14 p Mo & every article relative to ship rises in the same propartion what must the freights be to make an equivalent, as to the price of Toho ours was bought ori as good terms as any at the same time, the quality we are very liable to be imposed on, having no inspection nor in fact any persons here sufficiently judges of it; We wonder the exportation of it shou'd not be permitted from Martinico to France, as it is from St Domingo for we had 15 hhds transhipped from Cape Francois on our Acct Rice & Indico we deem good Commodities at your Market but tis difficult to get them there as they have little shipping to the Southward & here is too much employment for what we have to send them on Circuitous Voyages . . .