Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Honor to His Appointment

The Continental Congress Committee of Secret Correspondence wrote in October 1776 to the American Commissioners in Paris, France.  The Committee informed the Commissioners that Captain Lambert Wickes, of the ship-of-war Reprisal, was to conduct a cruise against British shipping after bringing Dr. Benjamin Franklin to the French port of Nantes.

"Captain Wickes is a worthy man....  He will treat prisoner with humanity, and we are convinced his conduct will do honor to his appointment."

Robert Morris et al., Committee of Secret Correspondence, to the Commissioners in Paris, Philadelphia, 24 October 1776, in Francis Wharton, editor, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 6 volumes (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 2:180.

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