Benjamin Harrison to Virginia Delegates, 20 September 1782
Benjamin Harrison to Virginia Delegates
FC (Virginia State Library). In William Tatham’s hand and directed to “Virginia Delegates in Congress.”
Septem: 20th. 1782.
Gentlemen
I can not account for the loss of my Letter as I have not omitted writing by every post except the last for several months.1 The petition you enclosed me2 from Kentuckey is the weak efforts of a small faction encouraged by some persons near you, it must now be subdued, or Government must exert itself to bring them to reason, as the last Assembly have redressed every grievance complain’d of by establishing a district court in that Country with the same powers of our General Court and independent of it, and have sent a Deputy Register of the Land Office to reside in that Country and open a Land Office to save the Inhabitants the Trouble of coming to this place to transact their Land Business.3 My Friend the Attorney was so obliging as to inform me that the Letters from Sir Guy Carleton to me that were in the Post Office at Philadelphia had been a matter of great wonder both as to the Manner of their getting there, and the Matter they could contain.4 I feel myself hurt and injured by it’s being even suspected that I could carry on a correspondence with him or any other person that was improper or in any Manner prejuditial to America, which must have been the case or the Circumstances could never have been attended to. I flatter’d myself that I was too well known and my Attachments to America established on too broad a foundation to be suspected even if I had been in Company with Sir Guy and all the British Ministry, and it is with great reluctance that I can prevail with myself to give the least satisfaction to a people who could entertain a Thought injurious to my Honor.5 Part of the Crew of the Flag Brig Maria Capt. Hart6 from N. York stole the Boat of the Brig in the Night, boarded and carried of[f] a Sloop that was in Hampton road bound to the Head of Elk7 loaded with naval Stores and provisions, this violation of the Flag call’d for redress and satisfaction, and I should have obtain’d it by a seizure of the Brig had she not sail’d before the fact came to my Knowledge.8 I laid the Matter before the Council and was advised to write to Gen: Carleton and demand reparation for the Injury and either that the Pirates should be punished by him or deliver’d up to me; my Letter with the Proof of the fact I enclosed open to Gen: Washington9 and beg’d the favor of him to send them in to N. York which he obligingly did, and return’d me Carletons Answer promising the most ample Satisfaction both as to the Value of the Vessel and cargo and the punishment of the Villains if they could be come at,10 on the receipt of which Letter I sent him thro’ the same channel the Valuation, and recd. Information in answer to it that he had recover’d the Vessel and would return her (which he has since done) that on her passage to N. York she had been taken and carried into Egg-Harbour and there condemn’d and sold. That she was fitted out at that port for New London and taken in her passage by the Hussar Man of War, that he had bought the sloop, and refer’d it to my determination whether the Owners of the Cargo ought not to look to the captors at Egg-Harbour for payment.11 I thought they ought as the Vessel could not be legally condemn’d having no Papers, and with a little reflection the Court of Admiralty12 would have found that all could not be right, and have secured the sailors till the Truth could have been search’d out. The Letters that were in the Post office contain’d duplicates of General Carletons proceedings in this Business and a duplicate of a Letter by one of your Flags13 advising me of a plenipotentiary’s being sent to Paris empower’d to settle the terms of Peace on the Basis of American Independence the original of which I had answer’d by the Flag in a few Words by telling him it was a Subject I had nothing to do with, and refer’d him to Congress:14 the Letters must have been sent to the post office by the General.15 The cargo of the sloop belong’d to Sam: Ingles and Mr. Whitesides of Philedelphia ship’d by Wells Cooper and Company to whom I have some time since wrote on the Subject.16 I agree with you in Sentiments respecting an application for the Negroes in N. York and only ask’d your Opinion to quiet the People here who wish’d for a permission to go for what they had lost.17 I am &c.
B. H.
1. Harrison was referring to a remark probably made by the delegates in their dispatch of 3 September, available only in the form of a brief printed extract (q.v.). Although on that date Harrison’s letter of 23 August had not reached the delegates, they acknowledged its receipt, along with that of 30 August, in their dispatch of 10 September to the governor (q.v.).
2. In the delegates’ letter of 3 September 1782 (q.v.).
3. Ibid., and n. 3; Comments on Petition of Kentuckians, 27 August 1782, and ed. n., and nn. 1, 5, 6. For “some persons near you,” see , III, 275, n. 8.
4. Edmund Randolph, attorney general of Virginia, evidently had derived his information about this subject from JM’s letter of 3 September 1782 to him (q.v., and n. 10).
5. That is, to explain to them the reasons for his correspondence with the British commander-in-chief.
6. For the sequence of events affecting Captain Benjamin Hart, his flag-of-truce brigantine “Maria,” and the sloop “William and John,” see , IV, 423; 425, n. 8. Little is known about Hart, a native of Portsmouth, N.H., but as a Loyalist he was obliged to abandon his property and take refuge with the British early in the Revolution. In 1777 the New Hampshire authorities permitted his family to join him, probably in New York City. In a memorial of 7 August 1783, addressed to General Sir Guy Carleton, he prayed for compensation because he had been obliged to sell the “Maria” in Virginia to pay the costs of his detention there by Governor Harrison from June to September 1782 (Nathaniel Bouton, ed., Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New-Hampshire from 1764 to 1776, VII [Nashua, N.H., 1873], 112, 478; Documents and Records Relating to the State of New-Hampshire during the Period of the American Revolution, from 1776 to 1783, VIII [Concord, N.H., 1874], 702; Historical Manuscripts Commission, eds., Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain [4 vols.; London, Dublin, and Hereford, 1906–9], II, 495, 514; III, 6; IV, 266).
7. Now Elkton, Md.
8. Either the governor erred or his clerk misunderstood him. The second “Brig” should be “sloop” to make the sentence an accurate statement of what happened. On 17 July Harrison had ordered the seizure of the “Maria,” and nine days later, having received a letter from Sir Guy Carleton “promiseing retribution,” the governor wrote to Captain Hart, giving him permission “to proceed on your Voyage” (, III, 272, 279–80). That the “Maria” was temporarily seized is established by Captain Hart’s letters of protest and thanks to Harrison on 23 July and 3 August 1782, respectively (, III, 227, 249; , III, 136). Cf. n. 6, above.
9. The letter was dated on 31 May (, III, 100; , III, 239–40). For its acknowledgment on 18 June 1782 by Washington, see , XXIV, 358.
10. See n. 8, above; and , III, 128–29.
11. This information had been sent to Harrison in Carleton’s letters of 26 July and 5 August 1782 (, III, 306).
12. That is, of New Jersey. See , IV, 425, n. 8.
13. Probably at Harrison’s behest, because he wished the delegates to know how much they had annoyed him by hinting in their letter of 10 September 1782 (q.v., and n. 4) that he should not have communicated with Carleton, the clerk underlined the words which here are italicized. Carleton had written the “Letter.” The flag-of-truce ship was the “William and John” (“Dove”). See , IV, 425, n. 8.
14. Harrison here referred to his letter of 28 August 1782 to Carleton (, III, 306).
15. George Washington.
16. Wills Cowper and Company of Suffolk, Va., had loaded in the sloop “William and John,” prior to her seizure by “the Pirates” from the crew of the “Maria,” one hundred barrels of tar, valued at £103 Virginia currency and owned by Samuel Inglis (d. 1783) and Company of Philadelphia, and thirty-six barrels of pork, valued at £216 and owned by Peter Whiteside and Company of the same city (, III, 313, 385; , III, 369; Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LXI [1937], 396). For a member of the “Company,” see , III, 327; 328, n. 5.
Probably with the rank of captain, Wills Cowper (d. ca. 1797) (Land-Tax Books, Nansemond County, 1797–1798, MSS in Virginia State Library) had been a commissary and paymaster of Virginia militia in 1776. He was elected to represent Nansemond County in the House of Delegates for the session of October 1782, but, probably owing to illness, he did not serve (Attendance Book, House of Delegates, for the Years 1781 and 1782, MS in Virginia State Library). On 1 December 1787 the state legislature appointed him as one of the “managers” to collect subscriptions for the building of the Dismal Swamp Canal (Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XXXIX [1915], 152; , I, 264; , October 1782, pp. 4–7; , XII, 478–79; Wilmer L. Hall, ed., The Vestry Book of the Upper Parish, Nansemond County, Virginia, 1743–1793 [Richmond, 1949], pp. 202–58, passim).
17. See Harrison to Virginia Delegates, 30 August, and n. 2; Motion on Slaves Taken by the British, 10 September, and nn. 1 and 11; Virginia Delegates to Harrison, 10 September 1782.