Sr., May 8. 1777

We have just recd. yr. kind Letter & take the earliest Oppo. to express our Gratitude for your generous & disinterested Conduct in this our Affair. A regard to the inclinations of the Negroes as well as our own Interest induces us to request yr. farther assistance in this matter.1 They Ship’d on board the Armed Brigantine Freedom,2 to fight agt. the Enemies of America & in that respect have rendered themselves worthy the Notice of America. They were voluntieer in the business & ought 370to be considered in the same light as any other Sailors, & by no means liable to be sold meerly because they are black & their masters have a property in their Service. An Indented Apprentice is a Servant during the term of appre., but no one would think of Selling them Such an one, if they were taken because of that, however we rest it with you to use such Arguments as will be most likely to prevail for their liberation. We each of us Send a Power, fully Authenticated & hope it will arrive in Season & prove Successful. We are at a Loss to how to Conduct the matter of Expence. We know not wt. it will be, neither can we make remittance Suddenly by any means we at present know of. We must therefore beg the favr. of you to conduct this Matter with yr. discretion & at as little Expence as may be & inform us of the Expence which we will pay either by answering yr. Draught or making you remittance if practicable. If in the course of the affair there should be any difference of expence in the two Negroes youll please to State it, & to make yr. draught of each of us Seperately as our Interest is seperate. If you Obtain Possession of them you will please to direct their Course home in the way you think will be safest, furnishing them with such passports as may be necessary. We rest your obliged hble. Servts.,

Dft. , endorsed: “May 8. 1777. to Negroes shipped on board Armed brigt. Freedom.” On the verso is part of a draft deed in an unidentified hand. It probably refers to the setting off of a dower portion to a Taunton estate.

1.

The context and recipient of this letter are uncertain. At the time RTP wrote the letter he was at Taunton between attending courts at Concord, Barnstable, and Plymouth. He did not note anything relating to this situation in his diary.

There were sailors from the Freedom who were imprisoned in England’s Mill Prison at Portsmouth in February 1777 and more in May and June. Dr. Jonathan Haskins, himself a prisoner there, noted the presence of several blacks among the inmates but did not indicate their origins by ship (Marion S. Coan, “A Revolutionary Prison Diary: The Journal of Dr. Jonathan Haskins,” New England Quarterly 17[1944]:290–309, 424–442; Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 8:879).

A similar situation apparently presented itself before the Continental Congress, which on Oct. 14, 1776, had resolved to appoint a committee “to consider what is to be done with negroes taken by vessels of war, in the service of the United States.” The committee consisted of James Wilson, Richard Henry Lee, and Samuel Huntington (Journals of the Continental Congress, 6:874).

2.

The armed sloops Freedom and Republic, which were built for the fledging State Navy at Swansea, Mass., arrived in Boston Harbor for the first time on Sept. 19, 1776. Within a week, the Massachusetts Council ordered that both ships be rerigged as brigantines (Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 6:899, 997).