[Madrid] 12th February 1776.
No 5
I have received advice from His Majesty's Consul at Corrunna, that an American vessel had put into that port and that the captain had refused to submit his passport and register to a regular inspection by the said Consul, and further that the Commandant General had not been able to assist /1im in obtaining it. Mr Boden, the master of the said vessel, wrote to me at lhe same time, alleging his fears of the consequence of giving up his passport, but referring much to my advice, which I have given him by a separate ostensible letter to Mr. [H.] Katenkamp, exhorting Mr Boden to comply with the usual admiralty orders, as his best security. 2 I have likewise had information of a transaction of a similar nature at Malaga, and that five American vessels have put into Bordeaux. All these circumstances made me think it not inexpedient to speak to the Spanish Minister upon them, in order to see how much assistance might be depended upon at the Ports of this Kingdom for compelling the masters of American vessels to comply with the usual, regular, and legal forms hith-. erto observed. I did not think myself authorized to require or expect, that this government should actually use force on these occasions, but only that it should appear that no encouragement would be given here to a trade which might be independently and illegally carried on. By the discourse held by M.Grimaldi on this occasion, I found him averse to taking any positive measure unless applied to for that purpose, and unless he was apprized of the intentions of the French Court on the same subject, but with respect to the utmost rigor in preventing ammunition &c from being in any shape carried to America from this country, .it should be observed, and the orders already given should be most explicitly repeated; and he added in a language very friendly to us, and politick with respect to his own Court, that the fullest reasons why this kingdom, and the governors of it, deprecated the growth of American Independence in our Colonies.
At the same time that I have the satisfaction of transmitting these general sentiments of this Court for His Majestys information, I would hµmbly suggest that the Consuls here will stand in need of particular instructions, as the number of these ships from America are likely to increase, perhaps to a degree which may be more easily prevented by intercepting them, than remedied after they reach the European Ports.