Displaying 1 - 20 of 63
Silas Deane, Connecticut Delegate to the Continental Congress, to Dr. Benjamin Gale, August 10, 1775
The Congress as you have heard make but a short recess; before the expiration of which, pray favor me with a line, and say what ground is there for the report of a certain new invention for destroying Ships. You are in the neighborhood, and therefore presume you can give me the particulars.
Date: 10 August 1775
Volume: Volume 1
Dear Sir, I wrote you a long letter from 6th to this Day, which DD Capt [Thomas] Palmer of Portsmouth & fearing Accidents recapitulate the Heads in this (Via New York). I arrived the 6th & sent forward your lettrs and the Bills for Acceptance. Messrs Ds2 have done everything in their power to assist Me & have added the utmost personal kindness & hospitality. I could...
Date: 23 June 1776
Volume: Volume 6
In compliance with your request at our interview of yesterday, I send you inclosed copies of my commission, and an extract from my instructions which will fully satisfy you of my being authorized to make the purchases Ihave applied to you for. To understand this extract, it is necessary to inform you that I was ordered to make my first application to the ministers and to procure the supplies...
Date: 20 July 1776
Volume: Volume 6
I wrote you every material occurrence to the time of my leaving Bordeaux, and sent duplicates by Captains Palmer, Bunker, and Seaver, one of which you will undoubtedly have received before this comes to hand. I left that city on the last of June and arrived here the Saturday following, having carefully attended to everything in the manufacturing or commercial towns in my way; which, indeed, are...
Date: 20 July 1776
Volume: Volume 6
Inclosed I send You a Copy of the Article of my Instructions which was the subject of Our last Conference.2 I have not as yet had the pleasure of seeing Monsr Beaumarchais but am so Confident, from the Character I received of him from You that he will be able to procure for Me the Articles I want, That I shall Apply to him in preference to any other person; And I imagine thro' him the...
Date: 22 July 1776
Volume: Volume 6
I have considered the letter you honored me with the 22d, and am of the opinion that your proposals for regulating the prices of goods and stores are just and equitable. The generous confidence you place in the virtue and justice of my constituents affords me the greatest pleasure, and gives me the most flattering prospect of success in the undertaking to their, as well as your, satisfaction, and...
Date: 24 July 1776
Volume: Volume 6
Mons. ー Chauont, a very wealthy person, and intendant for providing clothes, etc. for the French army, has offered me a credit on account of the Colonies to the amount of one million of livres, which, I have accepted. I have in treaty another credit, which joined to this, will purchase the articles directed in my instructons; the credit will be until May next, before which I hope remittances will...
Date: 27 July 1776
Volume: Volume 6
I should have sent this off earlier, but delayed on account of hearing something more directly, if I might depend on certain articles for which I was in treaty; I am now assured I may, and the whole will be ready to ship in all the month of October. My next labor will be to obtain a convoy, which I do not despair of, though it is a delicate question, and I have only sounded at a distance, yet I...
Date: 2 August 1776
Volume: Volume 6
...If a few of our cruisers should venture on this coast they might do very well, as they would find protection in the harbors of this kingdom. Coming ostensibly for the purpose only of commerce or otherwise no questions would be asked, and they might wait until an opportunity offered (of which they might be minutely informed), and then strike something to the purpose. I give this hint to...
Date: 18 August 1776
Volume: Volume 6
Since the stores and goods have been engaged and getting ready, I have made inquiry of several merchants respecting the charter of vessels for America generally, without mentioning what their cargoes should consist of, and have written in the same way to some of my correspondents, and in the whole, I find I shall not be able to provide them as early as is necessary at any rate, and I fear not...
Date: 19 August 1776
Volume: Volume 6
Memoire
In the Instructions given Mr Deane by the honorable Committee of Secrecy for the Congress of the United Colonies in North America he is among other Things charged to sollicit for a Credit for "Cloathing & Arms for Twenty five Thousand Men, with a suitable Quantity of Ammunition, and One hundred Field pieces" which Article closes, with saying ["]that the whole if granted or obtained,...
Date: 22 August 1776
Volume: Volume 6
I shall send you in October clothing for twenty thousand men, thirty thousand fusils, one hundred tons of powder, two hundred brass cannon, twenty four brass mortars, with shells, shot, lead, etc. in proportion. I am to advise you that if in future you will give commissions to seize Portuguese ships you may depend on the friendship and alliance of Spain.2 Let me urge this measure. Much...
Date: 17 September 1776
Volume: Volume 6
... For Heaven's sake, if you mean to have any connection with this kingdom [France], be more assiduous in getting yqur letters here. I know not where the blame lies, but it must be heavy somewhere, when vessels are suffered to sail from Philadelphia and other ports quite down to the middle of August without a single line. This circumstance was urged against my assertions, and was near proving a...
Date: 1 October 1776
Volume: Volume 6
Your Declaration of the 4th of July last has given this Court, as well as several others in Europe reason to expect you would in form announce your Independency to them, and ask their friendship, but a three months silence on that subject appears to them mysterious, and the more so as you declared for foreign alliances. This silence has given me the most inexpressible anxiety, has more than once...
Date: 8 October 1776
Volume: Volume 7
The inclosed extract of a Letter, from a Friend of mine, of undoubted Credit, at Bilboa, occasions my Troubling your excelleny, at this Time. As the congress have no Agent at present, at the Court of Madrid, I am apprehensive that the British Ambassador will endeavor to take advantage of this Circumstance, to obtain some resolution respecting this Vessel, not so much, to operate as by way of...
Date: 13 October 1776
Volume: Volume 7
Contract between John Joseph de Monthieu, Roderique Hortalez & Co. and Silas Deane, October 15, 1776
We the subscribers John Joseph de Monthieu and Rodrique Hortalez & Co. are agreed with Mr Silas Deane, agent of the United Colonies upon the subsequent arrangements.
That I de Monthieu do engage to furnish on account of the thirteen United Colonies of north america, a certain number of Vessels to carry arms and Merchandize, to the burthen of sixteen hundred tons, or as many Vessels as are...
Date: 15 October 1776
Volume: Volume 7
. . . a Vessel with a Commission from the Honble Congress detained in Bilboa as a Pirate, and complaint carried to the Court of Madrid, I have been applied to for assistance, and though I am in hopes, nothing will be determined against us, yet I confess I tremble to think how important a Question is by this step agitated, without any one empowered to appear in a proper Character and def end,...
Date: 17 October 1776
Volume: Volume 7
Since receiving yours of the 4th and 5th of Au?;USt last I have wrote you repeatedly, and have no doubt of your receipt of them, to which refer you. You are in the neighbourhood of St Vincent, and I learn that the Caribbs are not contented with their Masters, and being an artful as well as revengeful People would undoubtedly take this opportunity of throwing off a yoke, which nothing but a...
Date: 17 October 1776
Volume: Volume 7
Sr I had the honor of writing to you a few Days before I left Philadelphia, since Which I am so unhappy as to be Without any intelligence from the Colony, Either public or private, except what Newspapers affords, the whole of which has amounted to nothing, either determinate, or of importance—I have not had Leisure to Visit, as I intended, the different Manufactories of this Kingdom, on my...
Date: 2 November 1776
Volume: Volume 7
Gentlemen The only letters I have received from you were 4th and 5th of June last five months since, during which time Vessels have arrived from almost every part of america to every part of France and Spain, and I am informed Letters from Mr Morris to his Correspondents dated late in July. If the Congress do not mean to apply for foreign alliances let me intreat you to say so, and rescind your...
Date: 6 November 1776
Volume: Volume 7