[Extract]

Lord Sandwich ー Your letter accompanying those received from Major Pitcairn is just arrived: that officer's conduct seems highly praiseworthy. I am of his opinion that when once those rebels have felt a smart blow, they will submit; and no situation can ever change my fixed resolution, either to bring the colonies to a due obedience to the legislature of the mother country or to cast them off!

The admiral's dispatches convince me that 50-gun ships would be more fit for that service than the larger ones: I have therefore proposed that the three guardships should be recalled, and the fleet in America strengthened by fitting out six ships of fifty guns. I have observed to Lord North that this equipment will require the raising all the men necessary to man those ships, for that you cannot from any of the ships in commission furnish a single man.