[Extract]
Gentlemen

Since our last, a Copy of which is inclosed, Mr Hodge is arrived here from Martinique, & has brought safely the Papers he was charged with. He had a long Passage & was near being starved. We are about to employ him in a Service pointed out by you at Dunkirk or Flushing. He has delivered us three Sets of the Papers We wanted. But We shall want more, & beg. you will not fail to send them by several Opportunitys.²

. . . We are about purchasing some Cutters to be employed as Packets. In the first We dispatch, we shall write more particularly concerning our Proceedings here than by these Merchant Ships We can venture to do, for the Orders given to sink Letters are not well executed. One of our Vessels was lately carried into Gibraltar being taken by an English Man of War, and We hear there were Letters for us, which the Captain just as he was boarded threw out of the Cabin Window, which floating on the Water, were taken up; and a Sloop dispatch'd with them to London. We also just now hear from London, thro' the Ministry here, that another of our Ships is carried into Bristol by the Crew, who consisting of 8 American Seamen with 8 English, and 4 of the Americans being sick, the other 4 were overpower'd by the 8 English, and carried in as aforesaid: The Letters were dispatched to Court.

. . . The Amphitrite and the Seine frorri Havre; and the Mercury from Nantes are all now at Sea laden with Arms; Ammun1tioh, Btass field Pieces & Stores, Cloathing, Canvas &c. which if they Safely Artive, will put you in a much better Condition for the next Campaign than you were for the last. . . .

. . . that which makes the greatest Impression ih our favour here, is the prodigious Success of our arm'd Ships & Privateers. The Damage We have done their West India Trade has been estimated in a representation to Lord Sandwich by the Merchants of London at 1,800,000 £ sterling which has rais'd Insurance to 28 P Cent, being higher than at any time in the Last War with France & Spain. This Mode of exerting our force against them should be push'd with Vigour. It is that in which We can most sensibly hurt them: And to secure a Continuance of it, we think one or two of the Engineers we send over may be usefully employ'd in making some of our Ports impregnable.

As We are well inform'd that a number of Cutters are building, to cruise in the West Indies against our small Privateers, it may not be amiss, We think, to send your larger Vessels thither & ply in other Quarters with the small ones.

Finding that our Residence here together is nearly as expensive as if We were separate; and having Reason to believe that one of us might be useful in Madrid, and another in Holland, & some Courts farther northward, We have agreed that Mr Lee go to Spain, & either Mr Deane or Myself to The Hague. Mr Lee sets out to-morrow, having obtained Passports & a Letter from the Spanish Ambassador here to the Minister there. The Journey to Holland will not take Place so Soon: The particular Purposes of these Journeys We cannot prudently now explain.

We hope your Union continues firm & the Courage of our Countrymen unabated: England begins to be very jealous of this Court; and We think with some Reason.