Philadelphia July 17th. 1781
Dear Sir,
I am just favord with yours of the 13th. We have a letter from Mr. Parsons our Agent at Martinique June 13th. Tobago taken by one Ship of the line, 2 frigates & 800 troops. Several Vessels Loaded in the Harbour fell into the Hands of the French.1 We have no acct of the force or the disposition of the fleets.
Not much credit due to the article in the paper abt Barbadoes.
Mr Franklin has sent us Several Original Letters chiefly from Lord George Germain to Sr. Hy Clinton &ca. They were taken in an English packet & carryd into France.2 The Substance of these Letters will be publishd I expect to morrow, & I will look out for an opportunity to Send it to you before post. At present I will only say in General that they express the strongest confidence that America was at that time on the Brink of returning to G.B. Mr. Potts has this moment show’d me what he has wrote you on this Subject which makes it unnecessary for me to add any thing.
The President has a Letter from Genl Green the 9th of June - not yet read in Congress - Augusta taken-great & valuable stores fallen into our hands.3
I fear Genl. Green has raisd the Seige of 96 & that Wayne has been severely handeld by Cornwallis.
No official acct of these matters.
Present me to yr Lady. I am Dr Sr., with great esteem & regard, Yrs &c,
Danl Carroll
Receiver’s copy, Emmet Collection, New York Public Library.
1 Samuel Parsons’ June 13 letter reporting the capture of Tobago in late May by an assault contingent of the comte de Grasse’s Fleet was read in Congress July 16. See /CC, 20:750; and PCC, item 90, 1:365 - 66. See also William M. James, The British Navy in Adversity (1926; reprint ed., New York: Russell and Russell, 1970), pp. 261 - 63. Although secretary Thomson indicated in the journals that a second June 13 letter from Parsons was read that day, it is not in PCC.
2 Extracts from these "Original Letters," which had been taken from a captured British packet bound from Falmouth, Eng., to New York, had been read in Congress the preceding day, having arrived almost simultaneously in an April 9 letter from John Laurens at Versailles and an April 25 letter from John Jay at Madrid, for which See JCC, 20:750 - 51; PCC, item 110, 1:397 - 409, item 165, fols. 99 - 102; and Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, 4:355 - 56, 384 - 89. For the "Letters" themselves and their subsequent publication, see Thomas McKean to Washington, this date. The intercepted letters had originally been sent to Benjamin Franklin at Passy. He undoubtedly provided John Laurens with copies and on April 12 sent copies to John Jay (together with a duplicate of his March 12 letter which had been read in Congress on May 28) asking Jay to forward the extracts "by different conveyances, as the contents of some are important." Franklin further enclosed other copies of the intercepted letters in his May 3 letter to Congress, which was read on September 24, the same day that a duplicate of John Laurens’ April 9 letter arrived. See JCC, 20:549, 21:996; PCC, item 82, 1:355; and Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, 4:357 - 59.
3 Nathanael Greene had in fact written two letters on June 9 mentioning the fall of Augusta, both of which were read in Congress this day. See JCC, 20:755; and PCC, item 155, 2:113 - 30.