Somerset [Below Billingsport 10] November 1777
Dear Sir
I wrote from on board the Somerset by Captain Ourrys desire. A Rebel Officer just now came in, by way of Billingsport, to read his recantation. He seems intelligent & perfectly acquainted with all transactions of the Rebels, & hopes to make his peace with the General1 & his Father (whose name is Barblet & lives in Philadelphia) by giving intelligence that may be servicable. He says that Capt Lee2 who brought the Guns down against the ships the day before Yesterday, intends to bring down 2 twenty Pounders tonight nearer to the Point, & to open his Battery in the morning with Hot Shot.3 Capn. Ourry is desirous you should be acquainted with this circumstance & thinks it would be right to drop a little lower down: even if you was to move up again tomorrow upon seing the intelligence had no foundation—I always am [&c.]
A. S. Hamond.—
LB, NHi, William Cornwallis Papers, Letter Book, 138. Addressed at foot of page: "Honbl./ Capn. Cornwallis.—"
1. Sir William Howe.
2. Capt. James Lee, 2d Continental Artillery, who established a two-gun battery near Mantua Creek.
3. The site of this second battery was located about 800 yards north of Mantua Creek just below Little Mantua Creek. Archibald Robertson, Archibald Robertson, Lieutenant-General Royal Engineers, His Diaries and Sketches in America, 1762-1780, edited by Harry M. Lydenberg (New York: New York Public Library, 1930), 154. Apparently the former site was abandoned in favor of the latter. British warships observed work on the construction of the new battery as early as the afternoon of 11 Nov. According to William Bradford it was not operational until the morning of 15 Nov. William Bradford to Thomas Wharton, Jr., 16 Nov., below.