These may serve to inform your Honours of my present Situation, and how far advance'd, in Readiness; I am at the Pantoon1 and shall Careene my Ship on Tuesday next, and Expect by the last of the Week to have her finished as to heaving down; after that I hope in a short Time to be prepared for Sea. My Ship and Riging being so much shatered, it will take me some Time longer then I imaganed to get in Readiness, but having a Gentleman (John Brondfield Esqr.) to apply to who exerts himself in every Measure for the befenfit of the Ship will Expedite my geting ready. I hope your Honours may have Dispatchd Capt. Palmes before this comes to Hand.2 I should be extremely happy to hear from Paris. There is a small Schooner arrived here from Charlestown South Carolina, thirty Days passage, I've had a short Conversation with him, he brings us nothing new about our 28American Affairs, we have it here that four Days Past a Guernsey Privatere took two Spaniars from Bilboa and one small Brig from Bayone off the Mouth of this River. I've nothing more to add at Present, but Remain with the Greatest Respect, Your Honours Obedient Humble Servent

Passy, 13 April 1778. printed: JA, Diary and Autobiography , 4:52. In replying to Mercklé's letter of 26 March ( Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S. , 1:382), the Commissioners stated their desire to have nothing further to do with his affairs.

Mercklé, described by JA as “a Dutchman and another Adventurer, who applied to Us for Assistance, without any fair Claim to it,” in May 1776 had applied to the congress and apparently convinced the Committee of Commerce to allow him to act as a commercial agent in Europe ( Diary and Autobiography , 4:53; JCC , 4:403; Samuel Flagg Bemis, “Secret Intelligence, 1777: Two Documents,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 24:239 [May 1961]). By April 1778 the Commissioners had concluded that Mercklé was unfit to serve the United States in any capacity (Silas Deane to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 10 Jan. 1777; Arthur Lee to Richard Henry Lee, 6 March 1777, Deane Papers , 1:455; 2:21; Commissioners to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, 17 Jan., 4 March, 7 Oct. 1777, Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 2:248, 278,405). For Mercklé's reply and his effort to influence JA in his favor, see 27 April (below).

Passy, 13 April, 1778. printed JA, Diary and Autobiography , 4:50–51. In replying to a letter from Ross (not found) requesting compensation for monies spent and the return of papers taken by William Lee from the estate of Thomas Morris, who had died on 31 Jan., the Commissioners noted that Lee's being in Germany made it impossible to deal with the question of the papers, and they requested that Ross put his accounts in order and submit them at once.

John Ross, originally from Scotland and later a Philadelphia merchant and sometime agent of Willing, Morris & Co., had been em-29ployed by the Commissioners to produce clothing and munitions at Nantes (Papers of Robert Morris, ed. E. James Ferguson, Pittsburgh, 1973– , 1:169). For additional details concerning this increasingly bitter dispute, see the Commissioners to Ross, 3 May (calendared below), and Ross' letters to the Commissioners of 18 Aug., note 3 and references there (below), and of 8 Oct. (ViU: Lee Papers).