1. The documents enclosed with the letter of 17 June have not been found, but JA's comments in the following three paragraphs refer to the Dutch sloop Chester. According to the deposition of William Bray, captain of the Chester, the South Carolina privateers Experiment and Fair American took the sloop off Bermuda on 14 June 1777. Bray contended that the vessel and its cargo were Dutch and as such were not liable to capture. The case of the Chester, condemned on 14 July 1777 at Charleston, dragged on until 1787, when the U.S. Court of Appeals decided in favor of the captors. Since the real owner of the sloop, although Dutch, was a permanent resident in British territory the court ruled that the vessel and its cargo were a good prize ( Naval Docs. Amer. Rev. , 10:950–952). For additional information on the case of the Chester brought before the U.S. Commissioners at Paris in 1777 and 1778, see vol. 7:288–289.

2. In their reply of 27 June (Adams Papers), the Dubbeldemutses noted that Mr. Rocqùette, a Rotterdam merchant, wished to meet with JA at Amsterdam concerning “some goods of his frinds in America” on board the vessels from St. Eustatius that La Motte-Picquet captured and sent into Brest. Rocqùette's friends were probably Samuel Curson and Isaac Gouverneur Jr. (Franklin, Papers , 35:181). For JA's meeting with Rocqùette, see J. Rocqùette, Th. A. Elsevier, & P. Th. Rocqùette's letter of 3 July, below.