[Extract]
No 36/

. . . I come now, M. le Comte, to the details of the conversation that I had yesterday morning with Lord Suffolk. I went over with him the various matters upon which you had had the goodness to give me clarification, and the Instructions which it remained for me to imple­ment. I spoke again of Mr. Cunningham, and I gave equally plausible reasons for both his detention and his Release. As for his Ship which, in spite of the securities that had been taken, sailed from Dunkerque to return to Privateering, I have omitted none of the circumstances that seemed justifiable to us, I insisted among other things on the ex­tant proof of our fairness, by the imprisonment of Mr. Hodge in the Bastille. I likewise observed that, if they had found 16 Frenchmen as part of the Crew of the Ship taken by Mr. Cunningham, he should not draw any favorable inference as to the intentions of our Government. I strongly asserted that in making inquiries, it had been stated that these Frenchmen had signed on at the Port of Dunkerque: that be­ sides the Admiralty of this Port could have neither great activity nor much scope.

I then related what had happened with respect to an American Privateer which, having run into the Port of Brest, had been obliged to put to sea again immediately after making some necessary repairs.² To demonstrate how far our fair dealings could go; I again referred to an action more positive than the others, namely, that an English Ship, chased to the entrance of the river to Bordeaux by an American Pri­vateer, had been rescued by a French frigate, which had considered it her duty to oppose such a chase in proximity to our Coasts. . .