if you still think proper to have the letters published, and will enclose them to me, I shall take particular care to have them put into the next Gazette.

My family join in best compliments, hoping you have recovered your health.

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

PAUL LOYAL.

To John Macartney, Esq., Commander of His Majesty’s Ship Mercury.

Resolves of the Common-Hall above referred to NORFOLK BOROUGH, Sc:

At a Common-Hall summoned and held August 21, 1775, sundry Letters from John Macartney, Esq., Commander of His Majesty’s Ship Mercury, to Paul Loyal, Esquire, Mayor, were laid before the Hall; and the Hall taking the same into their serious consideration, and being greatly surprised at the contents thereof, it was thereupon

Resolved, That the letters from Captain Macartney to the Worshipful the Mayor, were evidently intended to alarm and intimidate the inhabitants of this Borough, were disrespectful to the Chief Magistrate of this Corporation, are an officious intermeddling in the civil Government of the Town, and contain an implied threatening which the Hall conceive to be unjustifiable, premature, and indecent: unjustifiable, inasmuch as no reason can be deduced from fact, or any authority be derived from law, to empower Captain Macartney, unsolicited by the Magistracy, to interfere in matters within their jurisdiction alone, and much less to hold up to them the idea of violence and compulsion, in a transaction so entirely without the line of his department; premature, as his conduct in this instance originates from ill-grounded suppositions and mistaken apprehensions, and without any sanction from facts to support them; indecent, because it impliedly charges the Magistracy with a wilful remissness in the exercise of the powers legally vested in them; because the menace is as particularly pointed against them, as if they were the abetters of riot and persecution; because it operates towards the destruction of the persons and properties of a number of His Majesty’s subjects, chiefly on account of some accidental insults, alleged to have been offered by a few incautious youth to an individual; because so little regard is shown to the understandings and feelings of people, as, at the same moment in which this haughty declaration, so big with ruin, is denounced, it is pretended that the execution of it is to preserve the persons and properties of His Majesty’s subjects, as if the utter destruction of their lives and estates could ever be deemed a preservation of their persons and properties.

Resolved, That the military power, agreeable to the British Constitution, is and ought to be under the control of the civil; and notwithstanding the utterly defenceless state of the Town, the body Corporate of this Borough will never tamely submit to the invasion of their privileges by the dangerous and untimely interposition of military force.

Resolved, That this Corporation will continue steadfastly to adhere to those substantial principles of good Government which ought to actuate the minds of all His Majesty’s faithful subjects; and that they embrace this opportunity to make this publick and solemn declaration, that notwithstanding their exposed and defenceless situation, which cannot be remedied, unbiased by fear, unappalled at the threats of unlawful power, they will never desert the righteous cause of their Country, plunged as it is into dreadful and unexpected calamities.

Ordered, That a copy of these Resolutions be by the Mayor transmitted to John Macartney, Esq., Commander of his Majesty’s Ship Mercury.

JOHNBOUSH, T. C.

CAPTAIN MACARTNEY TO PAUL LOYAL.

His Majesty’s Ship Mercury, at Norfolk, August 28, 1775.

SIR: I am much obliged for your polite favour, which enclosed some strictures by the Corporation of Norfolk upon my first letter to you. I must beg you will be pleased to publish the letters which have passed between us in the Virginia Newspapers, that a candid publick may judge of the motives which actuate my conduct.

When I first wrote to you, it was not my intention to draw on a political discussion with the inhabitants of Norfolk, or to ascertain in particular cases the limits of the civil or military jurisdictions. I was desirous that His Majesty’s subjects should know I ardently wished the peace of this Province, to promote which I shall strictly adhere to the tenour of my first letter.

I beg my respectful compliments to all your family, and have the honour to remain, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

JOHNMACARTNEY.

To Paul Loyal, Esq., Mayor of the Town of Norfolk, Virginia.

To the Honourable the Provincial Congress of NEW-YORK: The Memorial of sundry persons within the City of NEW-YORK, sheweth:

That a difference of opinion hath arisen in this City with respect to the propriety of shipping flaxseed to Ireland from this Colony; some urging that it was not the intent of the Continental Congress that any should be shipped, and others insisting that the contrary appears, not only from the Resolutions of the Continental Congress, but from the declaration of several of the Delegates upon that subject. The memorialists are apprehensive that should flaxseed be shipped while this difference of sentiment prevails, it might create some uneasiness in this City; and being informed that some of the Continental Delegates have signified to this Congress that the sense of the late Continental Congress, respecting this matter, was, that we were left at liberty to ship flaxseed, the memorialists beg that the Congress will, by some act or publication of theirs, declare whether the people of this Colony are, or are not at liberty to ship flaxseed as aforesaid, and also to satisfy the publick of the sense of the Continental Congress on that subject, if such their sense has been communicated to this Congress as before suggested.

New-York, August 12, 1775.

FRANCIS STEPHENS TO GENERAL GAGE.

Office of Ordnance, New-York, August 12, 1775.

SIR: Since my letter to your Excellency of the 31st July, I have been honoured with yours of the 18th preceding, which has given me much uneasiness, as it seems to imply a remissness on my part in not getting more of the stores removed from hence agreeable to your Excellency’s wishes. I must beg leave to observe, that I always used my utmost endeavours to comply with the orders I received, as far as circumstances would admit, but the multiplicity of bulky articles shipped on board the vessels, such as battering planks, boards, joists, bricks, straw, and many other particulars belonging to different departments, (the want of which was strongly urged to me,) took up so much room as to render it entirely out of my power to forward a further quantity of ordnance stores. Had the shipping ordered for that service been in a proper condition to have received their full load, I am well persuaded there would not, in that case, have any thing remained; but as some of them, particularly the ship Henry, had all her water, provisions, &c., on board, which the master refused to disembark, I was by that means prevented from sending many more articles which I should have otherwise certainly done.

If your Excellency will be pleased to order the several bills of lading to be laid before you, or an account of the many articles which were shipped from hence on board the different vessels, exclusive of the ordnance stores, you will judge of the vast deal of room they must have necessarily taken up on board these vessels, and which of course prevented my forwarding those stores that have since so very unfortunately fallen into the hands of the rebels.

The brig Countess of Darlington arrived in the sound, a few miles above Turtle Bay, on the twenty-fifth of April,