St James's 7th March 1777
[Extract]
The letter from Deane & Franklin to Your Excellency deserves no answer 2 . . .
P.S. I send inclosed to Your Excellency a Memorial of Arthur Edie, and others proprietors of the Ship Port Henderson; 3 and recommend their interest to your attention, if Your Excellency sees proper from further Knowledge of the business to interfere in it. 4
W
1. PRO, State Papers, 78/301, 336-37.
2. See American Commissioners in France to Lord Stormont, February 23, 1777, proposing an exchange of prisoners.
3. In PRO, State Papers, 78/301, 338-39, the memorial reads:
The Memorial of Arthur Edie & others, proprietors of the Ship Port Henderson late Capt. Atkins, now in the port of Nantes in France, sheweth. —
That the above mentioned ship departed from Jamaica in July 1775, loaded with Sugar Rum &ca bound for the port of London, & having met with bad weather in coming thro' the Gulf of Florida, was obliged to put into Charlestown South Carolina to repair the damage she had sustained; at which place she arrived in September same year, & the Ship & cargo were seized by the Rebels of that Colony. ー And the Memorialists are informed they have loaded her with Rice and Indigo, and called her the Hope, commanded by a Captain Hatters [John Hatter] & that said ship is now arrived at the port of Nantes in France. —
The Memorialists have sent a power of Attorney to claim said ship as their property, & have desired their correspondents at Nantes to apply to the British Ambassador at Paris, but lest such application should meet with any obstruction, they beg your Lordship to give the necessary instructions to his Majesties Ambassador at the Court of France, for recovering their property from the hands of the Rebels.
4. See Volume 4 for seizure of Port Henderson.
