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Samuel Tucker to the Commissioners
Docno: PJA06d015
Recipient: First Joint Commission at Paris
Recipient: JA
Date: 1778-04-11
[dateline] On Board Ship Boston, Burdeux April. 11th. 1778
[salute] Gentlemen
These may serve to inform your Honours of my present Situation, and how far advance'd, in Readiness; I am at the Pantoon1 and shall Careene my Ship on Tuesday next, and Expect by the last of the Week to have her finished as to heaving down; after that I hope in a short Time to be prepared for Sea. My Ship and Riging being so much shatered, it will take me some Time longer then I imaganed to get in Readiness, but having a Gentleman (John Brondfield Esqr.) to apply to who exerts himself in every Measure for the befenfit of the Ship will Expedite my geting ready. I hope your Honours may have Dispatchd Capt. Palmes before this comes to Hand.2 I should be extremely happy to hear from Paris. There is a small Schooner arrived here from Charlestown South Carolina, thirty Days passage, I've had a short Conversation with him, he brings us nothing new about our
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American Affairs, we have it here that four Days Past a Guernsey Privatere took two Spaniars from Bilboa and one small Brig from Bayone off the Mouth of this River. I've nothing more to add at Present, but Remain with the Greatest Respect, Your Honours Obedient Humble Servent
[signed] Saml Tucker
1. That is, a pontoon or large flat-bottomed barge equipped with cranes, capstans, and tackle and used for careening ships (
OED
).
2. This is Richard Palmes, captain of the marines on the Boston (JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 2:290, note 1). The Commissioners acknowledged the receipt of this letter and reported the departure of Capt. Palmes in a letter to Tucker of 15 April (RC, MH-H:Tucker Papers; Dft, Adams Papers—both in JA's hand).
Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to J. P. Mercklé
Docno: PJA06d016
Recipient: Mercklé, Johannes P.
Date: 1778-04-13
This is a summary of a document and does not contain a transcription. If it is available elsewhere in this digital edition, a page number link will be provided below in the paragraph beginning "Printed."
[dateline] Passy, 13 April 1778.
printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:52. In replying to Mercklé's letter of 26 March (
Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S.
, 1:382), the Commissioners stated their desire to have nothing further to do with his affairs.
Mercklé, described by JA as “a Dutchman and another Adventurer, who applied to Us for Assistance, without any fair Claim to it,” in May 1776 had applied to the congress and apparently convinced the Committee of Commerce to allow him to act as a commercial agent in Europe (
Diary and Autobiography
, 4:53;
JCC
, 4:403; Samuel Flagg Bemis, “Secret Intelligence, 1777: Two Documents,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 24:239 [May 1961]). By April 1778 the Commissioners had concluded that Mercklé was unfit to serve the United States in any capacity (Silas Deane to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 10 Jan. 1777; Arthur Lee to Richard Henry Lee, 6 March 1777,
Deane Papers
, 1:455; 2:21; Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 17 Jan., 4 March, 7 Oct. 1777, Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev.
, 2:248, 278,405). For Mercklé's reply and his effort to influence JA in his favor, see 27 April (below).
printed:
JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:52
.
The Commissioners to John Ross
Docno: PJA06d017
Recipient: Ross, John
Date: 1778-04-13
This is a summary of a document and does not contain a transcription. If it is available elsewhere in this digital edition, a page number link will be provided below in the paragraph beginning "Printed."
[dateline] Passy, 13 April, 1778.
printed
JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:50–51. In replying to a letter from Ross (not found) requesting compensation for monies spent and the return of papers taken by William Lee from the estate of Thomas Morris, who had died on 31 Jan., the Commissioners noted that Lee's being in Germany made it impossible to deal with the question of the papers, and they requested that Ross put his accounts in order and submit them at once.
John Ross, originally from Scotland and later a Philadelphia merchant and sometime agent of Willing, Morris & Co., had been em•
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ployed by the Commissioners to produce clothing and munitions at Nantes (Papers of Robert Morris, ed. E. James Ferguson, Pittsburgh, 1973– , 1:169). For additional details concerning this increasingly bitter dispute, see the Commissioners to Ross, 3 May (calendared below), and Ross' letters to the Commissioners of 18 Aug., note 3 and references there (below), and of 8 Oct. (ViU: Lee Papers).
printed:
JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:50–51
.
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/
http://www.masshist.org/ff/