(N^o. 16)
Sir, 

Since my Letter to you of the 1^st. of last Month¹ I have received your dispatch N^o. 52 and have laid it, with the Inclosures,² before The King.

The Measures already taken by His Majesty for the Security of the Province under your Government, and of which I fully informed you in my last, will, I hope, have the Effect to give entire Safety to the Inhabitants, and by removing their Apprehensions of Danger from any future irruption of the Rebels induce them to return to their Settlements and proceed in the Cultivation & Improvement of their Lands.

I have carefully read over the copies of the Correspondence that passed between the Spanish Governor of Louisiana and the Commanders of His Majesty’s Ships Sylph and Hound contained in the Minutes of the Council and other Inclosures in your dispatch³; and althô a most unjustifiable partiality and Encouragement to His Majesty’s Rebellious Subjects may easily be discovered in the Governor’s proceedings, yet there by no means appears in those Papers, sufficient cause for taking so rash a Step as that you meditated, of seizing Spanish Property or committing any Act of Hostility against the King of Spain or His Subjects, and I am to signify to you His Majesty’s Express Command that you take every Precaution to prevent any Violence or Injury being done to His Catholick Majesty’s Subjects, or affording any just ground of Complaint of an Infraction on our part of the Peace and Friendship which so happily subsists between the Two Crowns.

The free Navigation of the Mississippi is undoubtedly the common Right of the Subjects of Both Nations, but the Jurisdiction and Property are, as Don Galvez states it, intirely in Spain, from the Belize to the Iberville, and from thence to it’s Source on the left hand side only of a Line drawn thrô the Center of the River.—The Property of His Majesty’s Subjects seized within those Limits, the Governor professes to restore, and I see by Cap^t. Nunn’s Letter to you of the 14^th. April⁴ that M^r. Campbell’s Brig⁵ was actually given up.

The Countenance however which you say has been shewn to the Rebels at New Orleans and their being allowed to retain or dispose of there, the Effects they have plundered The King’s Subjects of within His Majesty’s Jurisdiction is a most offencive and injurious proceeding, & I shall not fail to communicate such part of your Letter and the Inclosures as relate to that Proceeding to Lord Weymouth, and I doubt not his Lordship will instruct His Majesty’s Ambassador at Madrid to make the strongest Representations to the Spanish Court upon the unwarrantable Conduct of It’s Governor, and I shall hope that orders will be given for restoring to His Majesty’s Subjects such part of their plundered Effects as may be found within the Spanish Territories. I am &c^a.