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Monday May 15: 1780
If upon the nearer acquaintance you have had,
you find Sambouski to be what you know I
take him to be, I wish you would do what depends
upon you for disposing him to be intimate
with me. As far as I could judge from
what I saw or heard of him, in point of pubic
affections, which is the main point, he seemed
to be altogether one of us. You know I can not
afford time to be with him often, no more than
he to be with me: but if I am not mistaken
in him, when we are together I could wish
it might be upon as unguarded a footing as
.
I would introduce him and Anderson to
another: from Anderson he would get a great
deal of the sort of information that he wants. Anderson
seems to be a very character; but
he requires to be
in the manner of it
apt not to like him at first sight. The first
time I saw him I could hardly get him to
say a syllable: but now we are as great as
ankle-weavers.
I can't say but I feel a little bit of
curiosity to see this same extraordinary young
man, this new-made acquaintance, and yet
cordial and confidential friend of your's, who is
"every thing that you would wish to be". Poor Lohman!
I am afraid he will be elbow'd out a
little by the brilliant and all accomplished
Pleschijeff. I trust however that you know
better than to forget him, or to omit any opportunity
of bearing testimony to his merits. I
can not help fearing for him, with the bad habit
of body he has got, encountering such a climate
as the W. Indies. If he should drop, it
well
be a great loss to Russia.
A point of naval economy - most probably
you are aware of it already: but lest you should
not, I will mention it. Never grant a letter
of marque to a store ship that goes with a convoy where the cargo if
it is a matter of importance to the service
The Officers have no interest worth mentioning
in the preservation of the cargo: but they have
a good interest in the taking of prizes. Consequently
they take french leave of the convoy, and
go to seek their fortunes. We stood a good chance
t'other day to lose the W. Indies Squadron together
with certain of the Islands perhaps, by an
over-sight of this kind. Witness the following
extract of a private letter from the original
It is from to Dick who
was Secretary to .
"Our " between Barbados &
Antigua Feb. 20th 1780"
— — — — "Our Ships are all arrived safe, but
"the has carried all my things down
"St Lucia having contrived to part company with
"us almost the instant she had got her instructions
" and rendezvous, I was picked up by
"our fleet several days before our arrival. This
"matter I shall inquire into by and by; the
"ship has a letter of marque which I think a
"storeship should not be allow'd." — — — — I conclude
"some storeships will immediately be sent out, as
"those we brought will be totally swallow'd up
"by the present wants of the fleet."
Tuesday May 16
You will have an answer from the
Venetian Ambassador to your queries about their
Ship-timber the next time I write. I saw Poli
this morning. He sets out next week on his return by way
of Holland. He is to reach Naples by the end of August I may perhaps make a packet for May
with as much Introd. as is printed off. Pignatelli
the Sardinian Ambassador is to lend me a new
publication on politics in Italian which Poli magnifies
to the skyes: but I can not say I expect
much from it, after that dammed piece of stuff
had in Latin from the Venetian. Sambouski
who
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Identifier: | JB/539/050/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
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1780-05-13 |
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539 |
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050 |
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001 |
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Correspondence |
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Jeremy Bentham |
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