h examples of benevolence cannot fail to make
a lasting impression on the American mind.

Since the receipt of your Excellency's letter, we have received
another from the American prisoners at Brest, by which it appears,
that there are ten of them, from four of whom only we had received
letters when we wrote before, the other six having written to us, but
their letters miscarried. We enclose a copy of this last letter, and
have the honor to request a similar indulgence to all the ten.

By a letter we received last night from L'Orient, we have the pleasure
to learn, that three vessels bound to the coast of Brazil have been
taken by his Majesty's frigates, or by French cruisers, and sent into
that port. It is very probable that the three masters of these vessels
and every one of their sailors are Americans.

We are happy in this opportunity of communicating to your Excellency
some intelligence, which we have been at some pains to collect, and
have good reason to believe exactly true. The English last year
carried on a very valuable whale fishery on the coasts of Brazil, off
the River Plate in South America, in the latitude 35 south, from
thence to 40, just on the edge of soundings, off and on, about the
longitude 65 from London. They have this year about seventeen vessels
in the fishery, which have all sailed in the months of September and
October. All the officers and almost all the men belonging to those
seventeen vessels are Americans, from Nantucket and Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, excepting two or three from Rhode Island, and perhaps
one from Long Island. The names of the Captains are Aaron Sheffield of
Newport; Goldsmith and Richard Holmes from Long Island; John
Chadwick, Francis May, Reuben May, John Meader, Jonathan Meader,
Elisha Clark, Benjamin Clark, William Ray, Paul Pease, Reuben Fitch,
Zebedee Coffin, and another Coffin, all of Nantucket; John Lock, Cape
Cod; Delano, Nantucket; Andrew Swain, Nantucket; William Ray,
Nantucket. Four or five of these vessels go to Greenland; the fleet
sails to Greenland the last of February or beginning of March.

There was published last year in the English newspapers, and the same
imposture has been repeated this year, a letter from the Lords of the
Admiralty to Dennis de Berdt, in Coleman street, informing him that a
convoy should be appointed to the Brazil fleet. But this, we have
certain information, was a forgery, calculated merely to deceive
American privateers, and th