Admiralty Office 13 Jany 1778
Gentn.
I have communicated to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty your Letter of the 12. instant giving an account of the Escape of two of the Prisoners part of the Crew of the Lexington Privatier who were sick in the Hospital,1 and proposing if they shall be retaken to apply to the Commanding Officer of His Majesty's Ships in the Downes to receive them on board; and I am commanded by their Lordships to acquaint you that they approve thereof, and if any other of the Crew of the said Privatier are still on shore for Cure, it is also their Lordships direction that they be sent on board when they shall be fit to be removed. I am [&c.]
Php Stephens
L, UkLNMM, Adm./M/404. Addressed at foot of first page: "Cornmissrs: for Sick & Hurt." Docketed: "Recd—14." Notations: ''Mr. Peck to be wrote to"; "Wrote Mr. Peck in consequence same day."
1. Two wounded seamen, James Bearns and another man, taken in the Lexington had escaped from the hospital at Deal and arrived in Dunkirk by 15 Jan. Francis Coffyn to the American Commissioners in France, 20 Jan. and 18 June, in Benjamin Franklin Papers 25: 495, and 26: 656.