Mr. [Dudley] Digges, from the Committee of Safety, informed the Convention, that the Committee had taken into their consideration how the prisoners lately taken by the captains James and Richard Barron, being 217 Scotch Highland regulars,² might be best disposed of, were of opinion that the non-commissioned officers and cadets should be sent to some secure place in the frontiers, and there kept as prisoners of war; that the seamen be engaged to serve one in a cruiser, or galley, if they shall be willing; if not, that they be disposed of with the privates; and that it will be most prudent to disperse the privates over the middle counties, where, one in a family, they being well used, and employ on such wages as they may be willing to take, may be secured, and probably reconciled to the country, at the same time considering them as prisoners of war; and had therefore ordered them to be sent, in equal numbers, to the following counties, to wit: Amelia, Amherst, Albemarle, Cumberland, Buckingham, Berkeley, Frederick, Sussex, Goochland, Louisa, Orange, Culpeper, Fauquier, and Loudoun; and that it be recommended to the committees of the several counties to distribute their number amongst the inhabitants respectively who may be willing to take them, and to be careful that the above purpose of the committee respecting the said men may be complied with, and that the women, if they have husbands, may be sent with them, together with their respective children. That the officers and men in the American service, who were put on board the said ship when she was taken to the northward by captain Biddle, ought to be engaged in the naval service, or permitted to return to their places of residence, as they shall choose.³

Resolved, That this Convention doth approve of the disposition of the prisoners aforesaid, as made by the Committee of Safety.