Baltimore Feby 24th. 1777
Sir1
You will receive herewith a packet directed to the Commissioners from the United States of America at Paris, and you are to proceed therewith (so soon as you have receiv'd your Letter of Credit from the secret Committee of Congress) either to Nantes or Bourdeaux in France, as the circumstances of wind and weather will permit.2 When you arrive you will immediately apply to the Continental Agent to whom you shall be directed by the secret Committee, and from him you will receive information where the Commissioners are to be met with in Paris, to which place you are to proceed with the greatest dispatch by Post, and deliver the Packet to the Commissioners or one of them with your own hands, and from them you are to receive your directions in every respect touching your return, and the Cargo if any that you are to bring with you. You may take the advice of the agent whether it will be proper for your Vessel to remain in Port where you arrive at, or to meet you at any other Port on your return from Paris. The Agent will furnish you with money to defray your expences to Paris, and to supply the Lexington with what necessaries she may want. You are desired to be silent in that Country about the place you are going to, and immediately to place your Packet in a Bag with weight that you may be sure of sinking it if you should be in danger of being certainly taken. The British Emmissaries in France are very inquisitive about all Vessels and Persons coming from America, and therefore you will be very cautious of talking with any Person concerning the place from whence you came, where you are going, or what is your Business. You will receive from the Secret Committee directions touching the change of your pig Iron ballast for any other they may direct you to receive. If any good opportunity occurs you will let this Committee know how you proceed, and where you are; your letters may be direced to the Honorable Benj. Harrison Esqr Chairman of the Committee of Secret Correspondence at Philadelphia. We wish you a good Voyage and safe return and are,
your Hble Servts,
Benja Harrison
Richard Henry Lee
Receiver's copy, Colonial Office 5, 7, British Public Record Office. Written by Lee and signed by Lee and Harrison.
1 Henry Johnson, former captain of the privateer Yankee, had only recently returned to the United States after escaping from imprisonment on H.M.S. Rippon. He was appointed commander of the Lexington on February 5, 1777, and after leaving Baltimore on February 26, he reached Bordeaux on April 3. Johnson participated in a successful European cruise with Capt. Lambert Wickes, but after a forced departure from France he was captured again on September 19. Early the next year he escaped from Mill Prison and returned to the United States. Morgan, Naval Documents, 6:529, 538 - 39, 581, 7:1024; JCC, 7:90; and William Bell Clark, Lambert Wickes Sea Raider and Diplomat (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), pp. 191 - 202, 352 - 53, 358 - 62.
2 The Secret Committee's correspondence with Johnson has not been found. But a Marine Committee letter to Johnson of February 21, instructing him "to put Yourself under the Direction of the Committee of Secret Correspondence & to obey such Orders as You shall receive from them," had been retained and was also captured with this letter. Most of the correspondence taken when the Lexington was captured in September was forwarded to the Admiralty, but the Marine Committee's routine instructions remained with the "ships papers" among the various prize documents that were generated as the case of the Lexington proceeded through the Admiralty courts. See Benjamin Franklin Stevens, comp., B. F. Stevens's Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773 - 1783, 2107 facsim. in 24 portfolios (London: Photographed and printed by Malby & Sons, 1889 - 95), nos. 1689, 1699; and High Court of Admiralty Papers 32 (388/10), PRO.