To John Adams from Thomas Walker, 24 June 1776
From Thomas Walker
Albany 24 June 1776
Honble. Sir
I take the Liberty to enclose you a Letter,1 that you may see the use that is made of the Indulgence, shewn to your prisoners. Another written by Major Dunbar, has been stopped by this Committee,2 and is upon their file; giving an Account of the great Confusion in our Provinces and the Attack that is expected to be made by the King’s forces. The enclosed Letter is addressed to the Church of England Minister at Montreal, who is King’s Chaplain, Chaplain of the Garrison, and has a Salary from the Society depro:3 a violent royalist. It is writ’ by a merchant who is married to a Lorimier,4 one of the Noblesse, who has two Brothers, active Indian partizans, who were at the Cedars, and are referr’d to in the postscript. I am with much respect Honble. Sir yr. most obedt and very hum. Servt.
Thomas Walker5
PS Monsr. Duchenay Seigneur of Beauport, who has been here, a long while said in Confidence to a french man, who reported it to me yesterday that, he staid here, in order to send the News, to the prisoners at Bristol, and Burlington.6
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “(on Continental service) To The Honble. John Adams Esqr. Philadelphia”; stamped: “FREE New-York, July 3”; docketed by JA: “Walker June 24. 1776”; in another hand: “T Walker June 24th 1776.” MS torn where the seal was removed. For the enclosure see note 1 (below).
1. The enclosed letter in French from P. Gamelin was addressed: “au Révérénd Docteur Chabrand Delisle, Montréal.”
2. The Albany Committee of Safety, Protection and Correspondence (James Sullivan, ed., Minutes of the Albany Committee of Correspondence, 1775— 1778, 2 vols., Albany, 1923–1925, 1:iii).
3. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, headquartered in London, which gave support to Anglican missionaries in America.
4. M. de Lormier had urged the attack on the American post at the Cedars. His exploits as a commander of Indians are recounted in “Mes services pendant la guerre américaine de 1775” in H. A. Verreau, Invasion du Canada, collection de mémoires recueillis et annotés par M. l’abbé Verrau, prêtre, Montréal, 1873 (Gustave Lanctot, Canada and the American Revolution, 1774–1783, Cambridge, 1967, p. 141, 287).
5. Walker was a prominent Montreal merchant who supported the American cause and by this time was well known to the members of the congress (JA to John Thomas, 7 March, note 3, above).
6. Bristol, Penna., and Burlington, N.J. (, 6:915; 5:673).