4. In the hand of Gérard de Rayneval.

5. Above, Jan. 13.

6. Copies of Sartine’s letter of Jan. 18 to Vergennes are at the Library of Congress (incorporated into the copy of the present letter) and the National Archives. In it Sartine expressed his surprise at the commissioners’ request: he had believed that only two ships had been waiting at Nantes and that they had already been convoyed to the Ile d’Aix, in the roadstead of Rochefort. He asked Vergennes to tell the commissioners that if these ships were among the four they had already mentioned to him they would be accorded the same convoy protection as French ships; if, however, there were still four ships at Nantes they would have to await a new convoy. (A large French convoy for the West Indies was assembled at the Ile d’Aix and had just been sent final sailing orders: Archives de la Marine, B2416: 27; B3667: 61.) Delays caused by having to wait for convoys were the price both American and French ships had to pay for protection from privateers; it was impossible for the French navy to provide protection for individual ships everywhere. See Villiers, Commerce colonial, pp. 206–27, for the institution of mandatory convoying for both coastal and transatlantic shipping; and Butterfield, John Adams Diary, II, 357, for an American merchant’s view that French naval officers considered convoy duty disgraceful.