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Sir

I had the honor of your Excellency's dispatch of the 16^th. Instant, by the Chevalier de Cuverville,¹ to whom I shall, with pleasure, render every kind of civility.

The nature of your Excellency's complaints against the person commanding the Tender, called the Snail,² relative to the Commission granted by Captain Garnier,³ and the Vexations your Vessels have received from him, made it necessary for me to lay your letter before the Admiral, he has informed me that you have written in terms exactly corresponding with those addressed to me, and that you will receive his Answer by a Ship of War, which he intends to send to you expressly for that purpose.

The impediments given to your Commerce, I am afraid considering the Times, and the Cloak so kindly lent to that of our Rebels, must occasion some little stoppage, now and then, to the fair Trader: but what are your disquietudes, and Vexations, to our real Captures and plunderings, to the ruin of many a wretched family by nominal Rebel Privateers? How have our Coasts throughout the whole West India Islands been infested by such piratical Interlopers? manned, not with our European Subjects, not with those Rebels who were our Subjects, but totally with French Men, French Negroes and French Molattoes; not fitted out in rebel Ports, but in French ones, not by American Rebels, but by French Merchants. I dare say, your Excellency will readily join with me in thinking, as there cannot be acts of higher Piracy than some of the abovementioned that it would have been justifiable, nay, that it would have been absolutely right, (as to both Nations) that these people should have been delivered over to the severity of our Laws and suffered the punishment due to such heinous crimes.—

I will again be proper to acquaint your Excellency, that the command of the Admiral here is totally distinct and seperate from that of the King's Governor in whatever concerns the Ships of War, or the conduct of the Officers under him, and therefore I must wholly refer you to his Answer. Your Excellency's Astonishment will cease when I assure you, that I have not received the dispatch of the 15^th. of December mentioned in your Letter, it is an Affair entirely unknown to me, and it would only have been doing me Justice, as no notice had been taken of it, to have supposed it must have miscarried. The Squirrel sailed on Wednesday the 6^th. of November 1776, the Maidstone on Wednesday the 31^st. of March 1777. They sailed then from hence for Europe, and have never since returned into these Seas.

Your Excellency has been pleased to say, "enfin je le previens pour le dernier fois, que sa reponse determinera bien decisement la conduite que je' dois ténir pour rèprimer et arreter les vexations continuelles que'prouvent sur nos cotes nos Cabateurs &c."—These are words perhaps rather implying more than your Excellency can mean. Your Character for Humanity, and good Sense, seems to stand too fair to let small Evils light up in your mind that which may be productive of the most horrid of all Ills, a general War.

I do assure your Excellency, that no one can be more sollicitous to preserve the Union now subsisting, or promote the continuance of it than I am, and it is my earnest Wish that you should have the fullest conception of the high Esteem and Regard with which I am Sir [&c.]