Provincial and State Papers

This waits upon you in answer to your favours wch I receiv'd since my last Express to you to inform you yt yesterday morning I dispatched the Massachusetts Frigate, Molin (1) Frigate & Snow Cæsar? (1) to join the ship Fame, the Snow (1) Prince of Orange and Boston Packet before Louisburg Harbour so yt we have now three stout Twenty gun ships, two good snows and a Brigantine proceeded for that place, wch I hope will be sufficient to Interrupt the Enemy's provision vessels, and even their recruits, if Monsieur Duvisier should arrive there this month: Capt. Gayton will also, I hope, be ready to sail by the latter end of the week in the same service, and when Capt. Rouse has landed the General at Chappeau Rouse bay and convoy'd the Fleet there, he will join the other Naval force.

Many Impediments and perplexities have hindered my dispatching the Forces from hence before Wensday morning next by wch time I hope in God y' nothing will hinder their sailing; and I believe that will be the best time for your Transports to sail for Canso, when, if we should not join you before, it is probable y our Fleet will arrive abt the same time wth yours.

I should have mentioned yt this morning Donahoe sail'd with another sloop under his convoy having on board a company of 50 men to reconnoitre the Coast, &c. and to clear it agst the arrival of the Fleet, and if it should happen yt your Transports should get the start of ours, I am advis'd yt it would be safest for 'em to stop at Whitehead Harbour abt 5 or 6 Leagues short of Canso, till the arrival of ours yt there may be as little danger as is possible of occasioning intelligence being convey'd to the Enemy by any little vessell to the Eastward of Canso, wch may discover 'em; and if you approve of it I shall be glad if you order it accordingly. I am inform'd yt Mr. Sparhawk has got some very good cutlasses and some firelocks wch it is doubted are not extraordinary: If you will be pleas'd to take the trouble of appointing some skillfull person to view both of 'em, and in case they or either of 'em are approv'd of, desire him to put such as are approv'd on board one of your Transports for the use of our Troops as spare arms, I shall be oblig'd to you, and our Committee will pay him for 'em. But if they are not good I would not have 'em. We forgot to put up among the Stores for our 150 men in your Regiment Gunpowder and Ball: If you will be pleas'd to supply 'em with three half barrels of powder and a like proportion of Ball for their passage, I shall be oblig'd to you, and will repay you by the first opportunity; The Blankets and money not used be pleas'd to return by a convenient opportunity. I must beg the favour of you to indulge Mr. Bollan in his Inclos'd request, if no inconvenience will attend it. I have so much fatigue yt I wth great difficulty hold out, but not without having impair'd my health. God send us both a good riddance of our Trouble and an happy Event to the Expedition.

I am sincerely,

Your Excy's faithfull, humble servant

To his Excy Gov. Wentworth.

W. SHIRLEY.

If John Batson a ship carpenter is not engag'd in the Expedition on board any of your Transports, I beg the favour of you to secure him to attend the General in the field, and to assure him yt he shall be provided for to his satisfaction by me, and yt I will give directions to the General abt it. There is a Jersey man who Mr. Vaughan thinks would be of great service to proceed, but is unwilling. Could you not impress him for a Pilot? Mr. Vaughan will talk to you farther abt him.

(1) These names are very obscurely written, almost illegible.-ED.

[P. 224.] Sir

Boston, May 13th 1845.

I had your favour this afternoon by young Mr. Jaffrey, who produced his fathers account, which I desir'd him to deliver to the Treasurer, to whom his Father's receipts I think were given. As to the agreement your Excellency mentions to be made between you and me, that the Companies to be rais'd in your Government should consist of 40 men each, and that three companys of 50 men each should at all Events be rais'd by you to be in the pay of this Government & added to your companies, I am apt to think may be a mistake; & would therefore beg the favour of you to let the paragraphs of my several letters upon which you found that agreement, be transcribed & send them to me by the next post (for I have not kept copies of them not imagining that we could mistake each other) and I will in the mean time look out the paragraphs of your Letters that relate to this affair and send them to you by the return of the Post, which I doubt not will clear up the matter between us. It is certain that I always intended and understood the agreement to be that you should if you pleas'd raise as many men to be in the pay of this Province as would make up your 350 a Regiment of 500 men, ever supposing that 350 of the men to be rais'd by you should be in your pay, according to the vote of your assembly, and not that you should raise only 320 men, and this Province pay the 30 men which that number falls short of the Quota of your Government voted to be raised by your Assembly; but that all the men raised by you within your Province over and above that Quota not exceeding the number of 150, should be in the pay of this Government; and this I consented to at your own request in order to augment your own 350 men, not to ease your Province of any part of that number, which would have been an injurious agreement on my part both to his Majesty's service, and this Province, and indeed unpardonable in me with respect to the latter, and unreasonable to be expected or desired of me on the part of your Government. I can't pretend to recollect every expression which may have dropped from my pen on this affair between us; But I am satisfyed the agreement you mention is so foreign to my intention that upon perusing my letters again and comparing 'em with your own you will find the real agreement to be, that all the men not exceeding 150 to be raised by you over and above the Quota of 350 Voted by your Assembly, should be paid and subsisted by this Government. The reason of my mentioning to you the vote of the Assembly of this Province for reducing our Companies from 50 men in each to 40, was to remove the difficulty of their first vote which I was afraid might ly in your way as it did in mine here, by which no Captain that had not raised 50 men was entituled to have his Company received into pay; whereas by the second vote fourty men was to be received as a Company, which I found an ease to me in raiseing my own Levies, but whatever I have said in that respect was not designed in the least as a proposal or agreement that your Companys should be only eight in number and consist of no more than 40 men Each, and that at all events this Province was to pay & subsist 150 men of New Hampshire Regiment. But upon the whole I ever understood that this Government was to pay and subsist as many men not exceeding 150 as you should raise within your Province over and above your own Governments Quota of 350 & no I am with great respect

more.

Sir-your Excellencys most obedient
humble servant

His Excy Govr Wentworth.

W. SHIRLEY.

P. S. Upon second thoughts —If the 350 men voted by your assembly were for the sea service as well as the Land, and 30 of 'em were appropriated to the sea, I mean the Transports, then eight Companies of 40 men each will make your Quota of Land forces, according to your Intention, tho' I did not

understand it so at first. But I am willing that should be so. But then 320 of the men rais'd by you must in all justice & reason be in your pay, as that is your Quota voted by y' Assembly (1).

List of New Hampshire men in Col. Samuel Moore's Regiment, Engaged in the Louisbourg Expedition.

[Copied from "Hist. and Geneal. Reg.," July, 1871, pp. 267-269. Compare with "Potter's Mill. Hist., Adj. Gen. Rep.," Vol. II, 1866, pp. 63-67. As the date of the paper containing this list is late in the autumn, it is highly probable that many of the men had gone home, which may account for. any difference with Col. Potter's list.-ED.]