To Benjamin Franklin from James Moylan, 5 July 1782
From James Moylan
ALS: American Philosophical Society
L’Orient 5th. July 1782
Honord Sir
I received in course the Letter wch. Mr. Will: Franklin honor’d me with, inclosing your condemnation of the prize Mary of London captur’d by the privateer Revolution of Salem.4 I now beg leave to trouble you with the procedure of the prize st. Pierre of st. Andere [Santander] recaptured by the Ship Carolina Cap: Newell of Philadelphia after being four days in the Enemys possission, on wch. I request your judgement to enable me to proceed in her sale &ca. as the Law directs.5
I have the honor to be with the utmost respect & esteem Honord Sir Your most obt hle st.
James Moylan
The Honorable B. Franklin Esqr. American Plenepotentiary Minister at the Court of Versailles
Notation: James Moylan 5. Juillet 1782.
4. BF’s certificate condemning the Mary, dated June 14 and addressed to the Judges of the Admiralty of Vannes, indicates that she was captured on April 22. This certificate is from the second printing of the form described in XXX, 360–1. Since the publication of vol. 30 we have discovered ten more examples of that second printing, including this one, in the Archives départementales de Morbihan.
5. BF sent a certificate to the Judges of the Admiralty of Vannes condemning the St. Pierre on July 15. Identical in wording to the printed certificates, this one was written by L’Air de Lamotte and signed by BF: Archives départementales de Morbihan. For Thomas Newell see Claghorn, Naval Officers, p. 219.
BF issued another printed prize certificate to the Judges of the Admiralty of Vannes on July 21 for the Auguste, bound from Quimper to Nantes, taken first by a British privateer and recaptured on June 22 by the Hamburg, Capt. George Blackwell: Archives départementales de Morbihan.