The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from a Gentleman of eminence and character in the West Indies.

I have herewith the honour to enclose you a copy of a Memorial presented by Sir Joseph Yorke, the English Ambassador at the Hague, to their High Mightinesses the States General; and their answer thereto.

MEMORIAL presented by Sir JOSEPH YORKE to the STATES GENERAL, the 25th of February, 1777.

High and Mighty Lords,

SINCE the commencement of the unnatural rebellion which hath appeared in the English colonies of North America against the legal constitution of the mother country, the subscriber, Ambassador extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from the King of Great Britain, hath had frequent occasions of addressing your High Mightinesses in the name of the King his master, to engage you by all the motives of national interest, of friendship, and even regard to treaties, to put a stop to the clandestine commerce which is carried on betwixt your subjects and the rebels.

If the measures which your High Mightinesses had thought proper to take had been as efficacious as your assurances was friendly, the subscriber would not have found himself under the disagreeable necessity of laying before your High Mightinesses facts of a most serious and alarming nature.

The King, High and Mighty Lords, has hitherto supported with a singular degree of patience, the reprehensible conduct of your subjects in regard to their interested commerce at St. Eustatia, and through that island with America. His Majesty always flattered himself that in giving time to your High Mightinesses to consider and examine the unjustifiable conduct of your subjects, you would have taken the necessary measures to correct such abuses, would have retained your subjects in proper bounds, and would have taught them to pay a proper respect to the friendship of Great Britain.

The complaints which I have now to lay before you are founded upon authentic documents annexed to this Memorial, when your High Mightinesses, with no less astonishment than indignation, will see, that after having permitted an illicit commerce with the American rebels at St. Eustatia, your new Governor, the Sieur de Graaf, has dared to be so unmindful of his duty as to connive at the arming of American vessels, and has permitted the capture of an English vessel by an American pirate, under the very cannon of his forts, and as an additional insult to the English nation and to all the other powers of Europe, hath from his principal fort returned a salute to the rebel colours.

To all the friendly representations made by our Governor of the neighbouring island of St. Kitts, upon these notorious facts, the Sieur de Graaf has answered in the most vague and unsatisfactory manner, and hath refused to enter into any explanation whatever with a member of the King's Council, despatched for that purpose by our said Governor.

After having laid the annexed pieces before you, I have nothing further to add than that the King, who hath read them with no less surprise than indignation, hath given me positive orders, to demand of your High Mightinesses a formal disavowal of the salute returned to the rebel colours by the fort Orange, at St. Eustatia, and the dismission and immediate recall of Governor Graaf, and likewise to declare on his part, that until this satisfaction is given (and he will not regard simple assurances or promises) he shall not wait a moment in adopting such measures as may best conduce to the interest and dignity of his Crown.

Hague, February 21, 1777.

The answer of their High Mightinesses was 'that they had no account to render to him of their conduct,' and after mature deliberation, they resolved to demand satisfaction for the affront offered them by the Memorial, and in the mean while ordered 12 sail of the line to be got in readiness.