Baltimore 2d Feby. 1777.
Gentlemen
I am favoured with your Letter of Jany the 14th1 & beg Leave to inform You, that Messrs. Joseph Gardoqui & Sons are directed to invest half the proceeds of three Cargoes of fish which I lately sent them "with the Effects that may be left of the Rockingham & Cargo in 100,000 good musket Flints, 20 Tons Lead, 1000 Soldiers Blankets, 5000 Yds. Ticklinburg suitable for Soldiers Tents, & the Residue in good Muskets with Bayonets, to be procured in France if cheaper there than at Bilbao, & shipped to a port northward of Boston." 2 Had You been apprized of this Order I should have wrote to Messrs. Guardoqui's to have made the Alteration proposed in your Letter, which may now be done by Mr Gerry Member of the House (in my Behalf) if You still think the Articles which You have mentioned are most wanted.3
The Express who will deliver You this is charged with Dispatches of great Importance, to be sent with all possible Expedition to Europe by the Council of your State;4 I wish no Time may be lost in sending the packets to Sea, & shall be glad to be informed on his Return, whether it is the Intention of the General Assembly to be half concerned in the Cargoes above mentioned agreable to the proposals made in my Letter to General Warren from Philadelphia the 26th Novemr. last.
I think it best to order the other half in a seperate Bottom, thereby to divide the Risque, &
remain Gentlemen, very respectfully your most huml Sert,
Elbridge Gerry
Receiver's copy, Massachusetts Secretary of State, Archives Division, Boston.
1 The Massachusetts Board of War's January 14, 1777, letter to Gerry is in Morgan, Naval Documents, 7:949 - 50.
2 The closing of Gerry's quote editorially conjectured.
3 For further information on the complex nature of Gerry's business with the Spanish merchants Gardoqui & Sons, see Gerry to Thomas Gerry, February 21, 1777.
4 This day Richard Henry Lee wrote the following note to Gerry, Samuel Adams, and William Whipple: "We have been not less disturbed than you by the detention of our intelligence Vessel, and I am now, in consequence of the Committees determination, preparing a letter to the Commissioners. We propose sending 2 Copies to the Council of Massachusetts & another to Philadelphia. The Express that lately made such haste to & from Boston is the person we intend to employ on this occasion. I wish Capt. Johnson would stay a day or two, because Fulford may agree with this State, in which case Capt. Johnson wd. be much wanted to take command of the Lexington, which Vessel may be immediately employed to reconnoitre the enemy and suppress their Tenders." Samuel Adams Papers, NN. Capt. Henry Johnson was appointed to command the Lexington on February 5. JCC, 7: 90