2006-06
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/31/2006
Newspaper, “The Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer” January 8, 1782, printed in Hartford by Hudson and Goodwin, with news from London “We have advices from paris...that the King has signified to his Excellency Benjamin Franklin, by his Ministers, the Count de Vergennes and M. Maurepas, taht he is determined to enter into no treaty for a general pacification with Great Britain, without the consent and approbation of his faithtful allies the United States of America, and firmly establishing their Independence...” as well as news from a dispatch of Captain Hume that reads in part: “...From Captain Pigot I received a body of intelligence...that Monsieur Suffrein had arrived in False bay on the 21st of June with his five ships of the line and the greatest part of his transports and that there were five Dutch East India ships at anchor in bay of Soldanha. I therefore resolved to enter that bay. I steered to the north of the harbour, towards St. Martin’s point, otherwise called the bay of St. Helen’s. I took the charge of pilotage on myself, and run in shore under cover of the night, judging my distance by the lead...We were forced to turn by traverses into the bay, nevertheless our arrival was so unexpected, and our movements so rapid, by carrying every sail we could bear, that the Dutch had just time to cut their cables, to loose their foretop sails, which were kept bent for this purpose, and to run their ships on shore, and to set them on fire as the Romney drooped anchor. But our boats boarded them so quickly...that the flames were soon extinguished...” More. Several arrow stamps point on interesting articles, else VG.
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