Sir
I am extremely sorry that I should in any Case differ in Opinion from your Excellency, But I cannot help thinking that the Prizes No. 2.3 & 51 do not come within the same line with those others already deliver'd up at your Desire; And must yet take the liberty of insisting upon the right the Troops or Naval Powers of the American States have to seize and take the Persons and Property of all British Subjects upon any part of the River Mississippi from its source to the Sea in like manner as upon the high Seas provided the same is not on shore upon His Catholic Majesty's Territorys or under the Guns and protection of any Fort in Your Excellencys Government, Neither of which was the Case of either of these Prizes
The prizes in Question are now in your Power and under your Authority; But I apprehend I cannot be answerable to My Masters the Honorable Congress for the Restitution of these Prizes if your Excellency does not think proper to give me a positive Order in writing for so doing; I shall at the same time expect that you will be pleased to enforce A restitution of those Negroes part of the Captures Ilegally made that are now onboard of a British Ship of War off this City Which Negroes were part of the property I had here and to which you accorded protection as well as any other Property that may in future be taken or received onboard of any Brittish Ships in like manner Which your Excellency was pleased to promise upon my delivering up a Negroe belonging to a Brittish Subject that had come onboard the Prize Ship Rebecca in this Port.2 I have the honor to be Sir [&c.]
Jas. Willing Captn
In the service of the
Indept United States of
America
New Orleans 5th. April 1778
L, SpSAG, Papeles de Cuba, Legajo 2370, part II, fol. 273. Addressed below close: “To/His Excellency/Don Barnardo De Galvez.”
1. As seen at Willing to Gálvez, 24 Mar. 1778, where the circumstances of each capture are discussed in some detail, prize no. 2 was brigantine Neptune, John Knowles, master; prize no. 3 was a batteau owned by Stephen Shakespear; and prize no. 5 were boats captured above “Spanish Aux Arcs" after trading with a British post. NDAR 11: 776–77. The captured boats, prize no. 5, were owned by a merchant named Rapicaut. John Caughey, "Willing's Expedition down the Mississippi, 1778," The Louisiana Historical Quarterly 15 (Jan. 1932): 22.
2. Gálvez wrote Comdr. John Fergusson of H.M. ship-rigged sloop-of-war Sylph on 6 Apr. conveying Willing's charge that Fergusson had given shelter aboard Sylph to fugitive slaves belonging to Willing. Adm. 1/241.
