To Benjamin Franklin from Williams, Moore & Co., 9 October 1782
From Williams, Moore & Co.
LS:6 University of Pennsylvania Library
L’orient le 9. 8bre. 1782.
Monsieur
Le Corsaire ameriquain Le Ciceron, Capitaine hill a nôtre consignation, est arrivé ce matin en ce port avec deux prises venant de la Jamaique; Sur une desquelles ce Sont trouvés Le lieutenant en pied & 29 hommes de L’Equipage du Vau. du Roy Le Romely, qui avoient été Sauvés par Cette prise Lorsque le Général Gaÿes qui le Commandoit, avoit Jugé a propos dy mettre Le feu,7 quoiquil ne nous paroit pas Juste que cet officier et les hommes de l’equipage sauvés du dit Vaisseau, Soyent regardés Comme prisonniers, nous n’avons pas ausé prendre Sur nous de leur donner leur Liberté Sans auparavant avoir reçu vos ordres a ce Sujet.
Nous avons Lhonneur dêtre avec Respect Monsieur Vos très humbles & très obeissants serviteurs8
Williams Moore & Co
Notation: Williams Moore 9. Octr. 1782.
6. Signed by James Moore.
7. The officer and crew had been rescued from Rear Adm. Thomas Graves’s flagship, H.M.S. Ramillies, when that vessel, five other ships of the line, and the convoy they were escorting from Jamaica to the British Isles encountered a hurricane off Newfoundland. Many ships were lost. The crew of the Ramillies was distributed among several of the merchant ships in the convoy before orders were given to set the sinking ship on fire. On Oct. 3 three American privateers, the Cicero, Revolution, and Buccaneer, captured four of the convoy’s merchantmen and sent them to Lorient consigned to Williams, Moore & Co. The four prizes were the Arundel, Two Brothers, Hope, and Jamaica; we do not know which two the Cicero escorted. John A. Tilley, The British Navy and the American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 1987), p. 274; Robert Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783 (6 vols., London, 1804), V, 496–526; Courier de l’Europe XII (1782), 237, 250–1.
8. On the day the present letter was written, BF signed a prize condemnation form for the Commerce, Capt. “Maktier” (McTier, McTeer), en route from Liverpool to St. John’s, Newfoundland, which was taken by the Buccaneer on Sept. 19. The form was filled out by WTF and addressed to the Judges of the Admiralty of Vannes (Dossiers des Prises, 9 B 183, Archives départementales de Morbihan). The prize was brought into Lorient at the end of September and consigned to Williams, Moore & Co.; their letter requesting BF’s adjudication is missing. JW to John and Andrew Cabot, and to Williams, Moore & Co., Sept. 30, 1782 (both at Yale University Library); Courier de l’Europe, XII (1782), 215.