A website from the Massachusetts Historical Society; founded 1791.
close

Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 6

William Bingham to the Commissioners -

St Pierre M/que June 16th 1778
It is a long time Since I have had ...

C. W. F. Dumas to the Commissioners -

Lahaie 16e. Juin 1778
Le feuillet ci-joint a èté écrit à ...

Search for a response to this letter.

John Bondfield to the Commissioners

Docno: PJA06d180

Author: Bondfield, John
Recipient: First Joint Commission at Paris
Recipient: JA
Date: 1778-06-16

[dateline] Bordeaux 16 June 1778

[salute] Honble. Sirs

I had the Honor to write you the 13.13 and 14th Instant.1 Mr. Emery receiv'd letters from Capt. Cunningham at Corrunha advising their Arrival at that Port from Cadiz having made four Prizes in the Passage.2 We have it reported the Boston fell in with two privateers, one of eighteen Guns she took, the other got off.3 I cannot trace it so as give implicite faith.
The Jersey Privateers stil continue upon the Coast of Spain they have taken a vessel belonging to Bayenne having Tobacco on board from the Cape and a small schooner with eighty hhds from Edenten.
Letters from Lisbon mention the arrival of a Vessel at that Port from the Western Islands that fell in with the Fleet under Comte D'Estaing near to Tercera4 the 23 May.
Captain de Siau is come down, A suitable vessel is purchased to mount 24 nine pounders two hundred and forty men and a small tender is on the stocks which together are to be compleatly equipt and at Sea by the 20th July. I am with due respect Your honors Most Obedient H Servant
[signed] John Bondfield
{p. 214}
RC PPAmP: Franklin Papers; addressed: “The Honble Benj. Franklin. Arthur Lee John Adams Esqr. Commissioners from Congress at Paris”; docketed: “Mr. Bondfield 16 June 1778.”
 
1. Neither the second letter of the 13th nor that of the 14th has been printed here. For the former, see the first letter of the 13th (note 1, above); for the latter, see Joy Castle to the Commissioners, 22 June (note 2, below).
 
2. John Emery, a Bilbao merchant, in writing to Arthur Lee from Bordeaux on 10 June (MH-H: Lee Papers), had referred to a letter from La Coruña of 18 May reporting the capture of four prizes by Gustavus Conyngham and the Revenge. Although four prizes were mentioned, only three, all captured on 4 May (the brigs Maria, Dispatch, and Siren), can be identified as likely to have been mentioned in a letter of 18 May ( Cruises of Conyngham, ed. Neeser, table facing p. 152).
 
3. Punctuation for this sentence editorially supplied. The report was erroneous; no mention of such an encounter appears in Samuel Tucker's log for the Boston (MH-H).
 
4. That is, Terceira, an island in the central Azores.
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/