438 Journal and Correspondence.

February 29

lency how to act, desiring you'll please to consider how hard it
would be to me after all the trouble & difficulties I have had to see
other persons take away the commissions I have right to (which
will hardly be adequate to my expences) without forwarding the
Service more than I have done.
Col. Peregrine Tilghman told me he had wrote to your Excellency
about the 28 barr^ls of flour I purchased last December of W^ra
Hemsley Esq^r as mentioned in my letter of the 5^th instant, & he
thought himself obliged to detain it 'till your orders are known; be
pleased to inform me if I can forward them to your Excellency &
the Gentlemen in Annapolis I bought them for.
I was lately in Somerset County and was informed there was
about 70 or 80 barr^ls of flour in a Store at Salisbury purchased last
Summer by M^r M^cBride, by order of the late Governor & Council
for the use of the States; it has been so long there, that most of it
is Sour. If brought up to Baltimore it may Sell to mix with Ship
Stuff and make Ship bread otherwise it must be lost.

February 29

[W. Smith, Baltimore, to Gov. Lee.]

Sir By a letter of the 25^th Inst, from the Agent general of the
Marine of france. I am directed to apply to your Excell^y for per-
mission to load with provisions for acco^l of his most Christian
Majesty fleet & Army in the W. Indies the two following Vessells.
To wit the schooner Kolker & the schooner Morris, mounting four
carriage guns & four swivels each, with fourteen men. I am also
directed to withdraw the application made on Acco^l of the Brig.
Hawke Capt. Taylor. I am sorry to be troublesome on this subject
and must plead my instructions as an appology.
I would lust beg leave, to observe to your Exc^y that as I am in-
formed much pains has been taken to injure my character with the
public & reports circulated to induce a belief that under cover of a
permission to purchase a quantity of flour for the french navy I had
engrosed considerable quantitys for my own Acco^t & far exceeded

the quantity pcrmitcd to be purchased in this State. And as I am
told returns have been made or are to be made to your Board of all
the wheat & flour seized in my possession and in the possession of my
Agents, I take the liberty for the information of your Excellency
& the Council (who I wish to be acquainted with every of my trans-
actions respecting this business) to mention that fourteen or fifteen
hundred bb^ls of the flour seized in my stores at Balt^o is no part of
that purchase, but delivered to my by order of the late Gov^r & Coun-
cil by the State of Virginia & by the Continental commissary of pur-
chases, this flour I was directed by the several committees of Con-
gress to appropriate to di ferent purposes. To Wit, for the use of the
American Navy at Boston a part to be delivered to the order of the
Comm^y general but principbly for the Marine of france. Add to this