John Bondfield to the American Commissioners
ALS: American Philosophical Society
<Bordeaux, October 13, 1778: We learn from an American privateer
which arrived at Corunna on September 30 that Admiral
Howe tried to relieve Rhode Island. His and d’Estaing’s
fleets were severely damaged in a storm; he has returned to
New York and d’Estaing regained his post off Newport. The
privateer took two packet boats from which he has brought
into Corunna four colonels, four majors and eighty other prisoners.
A French frigate sent a Lisbon packet worth £80,000
into Vigo. Two Spanish frigates from Ferrol are looking for an
English privateer which engaged a Spanish privateer.
Please send me the letter of marque for the Livingston that I
requested in my last letter. Mr. Livingston reports her well
advanced; she is of 400 tons, will carry 20 guns and will be
manned proportionately. The French merchants here are in a
critical state because of the lack of convoys for their returning
ships; the English have captured more than 50 of them. This
would present us an opportunity for our own trade with the
West Indies, but there is such a stagnation here that no one
has taken advantage of it. Four Virginia pilot boats are loading
salt and a trifling amount of haberdashery. If I had your commissions
I could immediately send to America 200,000 l.t. of
woolen blankets and clothing.>
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