Benjamin Franklin Papers
Documents filtered by: Recipient="Franklin, Benjamin" AND Period="Revolutionary War"
sorted by: recipient
Permanent link for this document:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-28-02-0162

John Paul Jones to Franklin and John Adams, 9 December 1778: résumé

John Paul Jones to Franklin and John Adams6

ALS: Dartmouth College Library; copy: National Archives

<Lorient, December 9, 1778: A Virginia pilot boat7 arrived in twenty-three days from Boston. Her captain reports that comte d’Estaing had sailed on a secret mission a fortnight before, that the Somerset was lost on Cape Cod and her crew made prisoners, that the Providence, Boston, and Ranger arrived with prizes, that the Raleigh was taken east of Boston and her crew made prisoners, that three of Byron’s fleet were ashore off Nantucket, and that Barbados and Grenada were taken.>

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

6Published in Taylor, Adams Papers, VII, 272.

7Probably the Dauphin, although she is not included on the list of pilot boats in E. M. Sanchez-Saavedra, A Guide to Virginia Military Organizations in the American Revolution, 1774–1787 (Richmond, 1978), p. 159.

Index Entries