English-Harbour Antigua 8th January 1777.
Copy.
Sir,
I am just informed that an Armed Sloop has taken Two Vessels on the High Seas, and brought the same into the Port of St Johns Antigua; as I am intirely ignorant by what Authority said Sloop Acts, or how Armed Vessels can be fitted out to Act offensively against his Majesty's Enemies, without having Commissions to do so from those who are properly Empowered to grant such Commissions by his Majesty; and that I am confident no person in these Islands is Authorized to do. I likewise know that repeated applications for Arming Vessels on the above account, has been positively refused in England. I must therefore deem the Perpetrators and Abettors in the aforesaid Captures, Robbers on the high Seas; and therefore do in his Majesty's Name require you, as Attorney General of his Majesty's Leeward Charibbe Islands, to prosecute the above Off enders, and bring them to Lawful Trial for their said Offence; any Assistance you may want from my Department, to bring the Delinquents to Justice, You shall have; and I doubt not the Legislature of this Island, will chearfully give you theirs: I presume, they as well as my self, will be sensible how detrimental all such proceedings must be; and would not wish to see their Country involved in Trouble, that the suffering such open and Illegal Acts of Violence will probably Produce; as the Men generally employed on such occasions, are seldom Scrupulous in what they do. The Sloop I am in formed, is called the Reprisal, and Commanded by one Marto Downey. I am Sir [&c.]
Thomas Warner Esqr
Attorney General of his Majesty's Leeward Charibbe Islands. —
[Endorsed] In V. A. Young's Letter Dated 8 March 1777 —