WILLIAM BARTLETT TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Beverley, June 11, 1776.

SIR: I would beg leave to inform your Excellency of my proceedings with respect to the vessels taken and brought in here by Captain Manly. After condemnation they were, agreeable to your instructions, advertised in the publick papers three weeks; I then proceeded to the sale. I received instructions from your Excellency, through the Honourable Major-General Ward, to purchase the ship Jenny and the brigantine Hannah, for the United Colonies, provided they sold very much under their real value: the Jenny selling for nineteen hundred and fifty pounds, thought it quite enough for her, therefore did not purchase her; the brigantine Hannah I purchased for five hundred and twenty pounds, and have since delivered her to Captain Bradford by order of General Ward; the ship Concord sold for nine hundred and thirty pounds; the brig Nancy for four hundred and thirty pounds; the sloop Betsey for one hundred and seventy-five pounds; and the sloop Polly for one hundred and thirty pounds. I have also sold all the goods I think at a very good price.

If your Excellency thinks proper to order that the goods delivered Colonel Mifflin, as well as the ordnance stores, should be valued and transmitted me, that the sales may be closed, it would be of infinite service to the poor captors, as well as an encouragement to them to go again into the service; for I do not conceive there can be a division until I can get the amount of the whole.

I would further beg your Excellency’s instructions concerning paying the captors. There were several servants in the service in taking these prizes, the masters of whom apply for their share of the prize money. Knowing the rules of the Army respecting that matter, have refused paying them until I receive your Excellency’s orders: also, whether any of the people who are yet left with us belonging to any of the above vessels should receive any wages.

This day Captain Bradford applied, and informed me that he was appointed agent for this Colony, with power to depute whom he thought proper under him; therefore desired me not to act any more in the station which your Excellency was pleased to appoint me in.

Your Excellency’s orders with respect to this, or any other affair, will be gratefully accepted and punctually obeyed, by your Excellency’s most obedient, humble servant,

WILLIAM BARTLETT.

To His Excellency General Washington.

N. B. My best compliments to Colonel Moylan.

DISSOLUTION OF THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY.

Annapolis, June 13, 1776.

The time limited for the continuation of the present General Assembly of this Province expiring on the 14th instant, his Excellency our Governour was yesterday pleased to issue his Proclamation for dissolving the same, and to order writs of election to be issued to-morrow to call a new Assembly, returnable the 25th day July next.

CHARLES CARROLL, BARRISTER, TO WILLIAM HAYWARD.

Mount-Clare, Baltimore County, June 12, 1776.

MY DEAR SIR: I received last night Mr. Tilghman’s letter of Sunday last, enclosing the resolves of the Virginia Convention; and I assure you I would most willingly ride down to Annapolis, to be with you a day or two, were I in a condition to do it or to be of much service, but I am so unhinged and relaxed by my attendance and confinement, that I am plagued with almost constant little fevers; and though I keep about, I am apprehensive such a ride would lay me up, and it is with difficulty I now hold my pen to write to you. I will, however, with as much precision as I can, give you my sentiments.

If you are fully convinced of the propriety of the present Council of Safety entering into a vindication of the conduct of the Convention and the proceedings of the former Council, by letter to the Committee of Safety of Virginia, against assertions thrown out by the Convention of that Colony in their resolves, I think you have the matter and the grounds for the conduct of the Council of Safety fully set forth in our letters to the Congress, and our several letters to our Deputies on the intercepted letters, and our proceedings with the Governour. And I think the more concise and pointed such letter is the better. They may be told that the Council of Safety proceeded in a matter to which they were competent, on testimony that they (the Convention of Virginia ) could not be privy to; that they were happy in having their conduct approved of by the Convention of the Province; and that you would not condescend to enter into a discussion of their conduct with any publick body that has not authority to interfere in our Provincial concerns, and to which we are not accountable; that the readiness with which this Province, on a late occasion, ordered some companies of their Minute-men down to the Eastern-Shore Counties of Virginia for their protection, and the readiness and disposition the Council of Safety have on every occasion demonstrated to co-operate with their Colony in every measure proposed by them, will evince to the world their regard for the safety and welfare of that Colony, and clear the Convention from the unjust imputation of having promoted Governour Eden’s passage, to assist in the destruction of the Colony of Virginia, under pretence of his returning to England. I have not the letter, or what they call the address, to Governour Eden, here; but by what I recollect of it, I think they may be told that the Council cannot conceive the letter or address to Governour Eden can support or justify him in assuming any publick character, or enable him to promote any measure that may tend to disunite the Colonies, or be productive of the danger apprehended to the common cause of America.

N. B. Would it not be proper to omit the address? If you incline to say anything on the clause in the resolves relating to the reasons assigned for his departure, you may, I think, well tell them that when we consider that the President of the Council of State, on whom, by act of Assembly of this Province, in the absence of the Governour, the Government is to devolve, is a native of the Province, and his connexions, fortune, and family in it, we cannot apprehend he will consider himself under equal obligations to execute the Ministerial mandates, with a Governour who is a native of England, and who has his family, connexions, and fortune, in that country; nor, if he should unfortunately be equally ready to obey them, do we apprehend that he will have equal influence or power to carry any measures proposed by them into execution;—we therefore are persuaded the Convention acted with the greatest discretion and prudence in continuing the Government in its old and at present established form, till they should themselves be convinced that there was no probability of a reconciliation with Great Britain, and should find themselves under an absolute necessity of altering it; and we are convinced that in their proceedings they were neither deceived by any professions of friendship to America made by Governour Eden, nor influenced by any dependance on Proprietary power, but actuated by strict justice and honour only; and we are satisfied their conduct has met with the approbation of their constituents, who, we are convinced, will treat in a manner becoming their good sense and spirit every attempt of any external Provincial body whatsoever that may presume to dictate to them, or to interfere with the administration of Government or internal business of the Province; and although we cannot but be in some measure affected by the injurious insinuations thrown out in the resolves of the Convention of Virginia against the motives and conduct of the Convention and Council of Safety—insinuations in our opinion continued and circulated to lessen in the estimation of our countrymen the credit of those in whom at present the publick authority in this Province is placed, and are satisfied they will not tend to promote the harmony that at this critical period should subsist between the two Colonies, but may, in our apprehension, be attended with the most disagreeable and perhaps dangerous consequences—yet we shall, with the spirit and firmness often superior to little contrivances and such provocations, disregard the injurious treatment these bodies have received, or any that may ever hereafter be offered to us as a publick body, and shall steadily, to the utmost of our power, pursue every measure that, in our opinion, may conduce to the safety, protection and defence of ourselves and our neighbours, or promote the general interests of America.

I have thus thrown together my thoughts. Whether you

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