[Extract]
. . . I am assured that the Ministry has sent orders to the Prince de Robecq, Govnr of French Flanders, to force the restitution of the three captured ships and especially of the Packet boat to their English Owners on the basis of the complaint made that despite the privateer having a commission from Congress, he alone [Conyngham] was an American, and all the others Irish. It is added that since the complaint made by the-British Ambassador proved false, and that two thirds were Americans, this Ministry reversed its original orders.
It is also said that abreast of Bordeaux an American privateer captured, without any combat, an English merchant ship which had 30 men aboard and a gun or two. 'That the privateer had only ten small guns, two of which were of wood for deception; that having returned to Bordeaux and found it difficult to sell their prize, they thereupon set sail to take it to America, after imprisoning in their own ship and in the other the captain, officers and a majority of the seamen. This information should be confirmed, in spite of its probability.
