Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
By a return’d Express I last evening receiv’d a Resolution of Congress which I herewith take the liberty of transmitting you, least that sent you should miscarry.
2It will be intirely out of my power to attend the business directed in the Resolution which I have signified to Congress, & must beg the favor of you sir, and the other Gentlemen in the Commission to excuse.1
I heartily wish you may be able to investigate the true causes of the failure which reflect so much dishonour on the American Arms. In order to contribute my mite, I beg leave to recommend that Capt. Caleb Gardner2 may be called upon, as I understand he ingaged as a Volenteer in this intended expidition & from my Knowledge of that Gentn: I am Confident he will give you as good information of matters as any person you’ll meet with.
Whipple had been appointed a member of the commission to investigate the failure of the Rhode Island expedition (see Extract from the Minutes of the Continental Congress, Dec. 12, 1777, RTP 3:423).
Caleb Gardner (1739–1806), a sea captain who sailed to China and the East Indies in his early years, had retired to life as a merchant in his native Newport before the Revolution, for which he raised a company. In 1778 he assisted the French navy in negotiating out of Newport Harbor beyond the blockading British navy. After the war, Gardner was appointed French consul in Newport (Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography).