[Extract]
(No 6.)

My Lord I have the Honor to inclose to your Lordship, Copies of several Letters and Affidavits which I have received within these few days, from the Superintendant the Council and Magistrates upon the Mosquito Shore, and from Mr. [Alexander] Blair part owner with Doctor [Charles] Irving of the Sloop Morning Star, and her Cargo.²

The Satisfaction the first of these Letters gave me, could only be [exceeded] by the Concern and Surprize I felt on the receipt of the last, which came but three days after them, informing me of these open Acts of Violence, and Piracy committed as is Supposed, by the Spaniards, in time of a profound Peace, on the Persons and properties of His Majesty's Subjects lying at Anchor in a British Settlement.

Whenever I can ascertain to what place these Spanish Vessels belong, that have been guilty of these depredations, I will make a proper Complaint to the Governor of that District and demand instant redress.

For my own part I have a strong suspicion, and I will submit to your Lordship, whether there is not some ground for it, that these were Rebel Vessels who boarded, and carried away the Morning Star: The Affidavits do by no means prove were Spaniards, none of these Deponents were onboard of them, and they hailed both in Spanish and English; and as to the Colours that can determine nothing for, or against a suspicion; strengthen'd by the improbability that the Spaniards would at once by so flagrant an Act of Hostility Violate the last Treaties of Peace.

On the receipt of these papers &c. I directly sent Copies of them to Admiral Gayton, and applied to him, to send such protection to the Shore, as he thought their Situation required, and His Majesty's other Services would permit him to spare. In Answer he informs me that the Annual Ship he sends to the Shore and Bay of Honduras agreeable to his Instructions would have been there before now, but that he had received orders from the Admiralty to send the only two Ships he had, except the Antelope, to cruize after the North Americans, but that so soon as the Atalanta Sloop of War arrives, which he expects daily from Africa, he will send her down to visit those places.

With regard to the Officers of the Settlement upon the Mosquito Shore, I must inform your Lordship that the Plan I adopted, with the Assistance of His Majesty's Council, for restoring order among the settlers there, Vested all the Powers, and Authorities in Mr. [John] Fergusson, to carry it into execution, being clearly of opinion, that Mr [Robert] Hodgson would be superceded by the King's Orders for his immediate return to England, at the Moment Mr. Fergusson should deliver them into His Hands.

Many of the most respectable Merchants in this Island having applied to me by their Letter of the 12th Instant, representing that the time appointed for the sailing of the Thynne Packet which was to be as the 16th Instant being so immediately after the sailing of the Hillsborough on the 8th and that of the Waymouth on the 15th Instant and so long before the sailing of the July Fleet it rendered as they conceived to every intent and purpose the sailing of the Thynne of no use to the public, and that as the next packet in rotation is not expected to arrive here, and sail before the July Convoy, they humbly submitted to me whether it would not be proper to detain the Thynne until the 15th of July which they considered as a proper time previous to the departure of the Fleet for advising thereof; and that therefore such her detention would be of Public Utility.

I laid this petition before his Majesty's Council together with the Copy of a Letter from the Post Master General to Lord Dartmouth on the 4th December 1772 and his Lordship's Letter in consequence thereof to Sir William Trelawny upon the subject of the detention of the packets, and they were unanimously of oppinion with me to grant the Petition in part by ordering the Thynne to be detained till the first of July as we conceived the Merchants might by that time be nearly informed as to the Insurance and advice upon the Fleet that is to sail the latter end of that Month and as we also think the next packet in rotation will in all probability be in Jamaica within the first eight days of July ー In consideration of all these circumstances I have ordered the said Packet to be detained till the first of July. I Have the Honour to be My Lord [&c.]