Richard Grinnell to the American Commissioners, 15 September 1778: résumé
Richard Grinnell to the American Commissioners7
ALS: American Philosophical Society
<Guernsey, September 15, 1778: Captain Peter Collas and I sailed with Captain [Corbin] Barnes from Paimboeuf August 29. We were captured September 1 by Captain Abraham Bushall who treated us like brothers. We fell in with Captain Niles whose schooner Spy had been taken by a Jersey privateer. Niles and Barnes succeeded in throwing all papers overboard. Barnes is still on the privateer. You will receive this through the son of the Mr. Dobrée who resides here.8>
7. Published in Taylor, Adams Papers, VII. Grinnell described his recent history to the commissioners on July 9. For the information he provided on Guernsey’s fortifications, see Butterfield, John Adams Diary, II, 320–22. See ibid., 319–20, and below, Oct. 7, for his detailed account of the British whaling fleet which, together with that offered by Tristram Barnard, [after Oct. 9], formed the core of the commissioners’ intelligence to Sartine of Oct. 30. JA recommended Grinnell for a place with Capt. McNeill to whom he proposed a cruise against the whalers: Taylor, Adams Papers, VII, under Oct. 9.
8. The father, Thomas, was a Guernsey merchant; the son, Peter Frederick, Schweighauser’s son-in-law, resided in Nantes.