Philadelphia Novr. 6th 1780.
Dear Sir
I am honor’d by your Favor of the 3d for which be pleased to accept my Acknowledgments. We have various flying Reports of fortunate Events having taken Place in the South, & waited impatiently the Arrival of this Days Post, expecting it to bring Confirmation; but we are as yet without it, notwithstanding some have come in a pretty direct Line. A Letter of short Date from Mr. Curson in St Eustatia mentions a Disposition in the Dutch to War,1 that they have fifty Sail of Ships, & that the Admiral in that Iland pays great Regard to the American Flag by regularly returning every Salute. A Paragraph in a late N York Paper, complaining of the Perfidy of some Powers which (as they think), ought to be more attached to Britain, seems to give Strength to the above Observation. I am much obliged by your Attention to our Wants, & as you say you shortly expect a considerable Sum, I will take the Liberty to draw. Mrs. Plater begs to be presented to your Lady,
& I entreat you to believe that I am with the highest Respect, yr Excellency’s most obt. & obliged hble Servt,
Geo Plater
Receiver’s copy, Revolutionary War Collection, Maryland Historical Society.
1 There is no letter in PCC of "short Date" from Samuel Curson, the Continental agent in St. Eustatia, relating to "a Disposition in the Dutch to War," but for the drift of the United Provinces into direct conflict with Great Britain during the fall of 1780, see Friedrich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1911), pp. 148 - 73; and Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt, The Dutch Republic and American Independence, trans. by H. H. Rowen (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), pp. 146 - 57.