For my own part I rather suspect that this order treated us as an independent nation, and that the Minister found it difficult to establish any general regulations respecting our prizes or commerce, without meeting with that obstacle. M. Gardoqui informed me, that one of the Judges permitted him to read it, but would not let him take a copy of it, and that it only contained an extension to American prizes, of the regulations before ordained for Dutch and French ones.
As to the prize at Bilboa, a particular order was issued in that case for selling the ship and cargo, on the captors giving security to produce, within a year, an exemplification of a sentence of an American Court of Admiralty to justify it.
On the 5th of November, M. Gardoqui communicated to me certain letters and papers from which it appeared, that the Cicero, Captain Hill, had been stopped at Bilboa, by an order of the Minister, on a charge of improper conduct towards one of the King's cutters. Upon this subject I wrote the following letter to the Count de Florida Blanca, viz.
"Madrid, November 6th, 1781.
"Sir,
"It gives me much concern to be informed, that the conduct of Captain Hill, of the Cicero, an American private ship of war, towards one of his Catholic Majesty's cutters, has been so represented to your Excellency, as to have given occasion to an order for detaining him at Bilboa.
"This unfortunate affair is represented to me as follows.
"That Captain Hill, with a prize he had taken, was going from Corunna to Bilboa. That in the night of the 26th of October last, he discovered an armed vessel approaching the prize. Captain Hill suspecting it to be a Jersey privateer, hailed her, and ordered her to send her boat on board. They answered in English, that their boat was out of repair. This circumstance increased his suspicions that she was an enemy, and induced him to insist on their sending a boat on board; which not being complied with, he was persuaded it was an enemy, and accordingly gave them a broadside. Upon this they sent a boat to the Cicero and convinced Captain Hill, that the vessel was a Spanish cutter.
"If this is really a true state of the fact, and I have reason to believe it is, I am persuaded, that your Excellency will not think Captain Hill's conduct was unjustifiable, or contrary to the common usage in such cases. Having a valuable prize under his care, it was his duty to protect it, and as it was impossible for him at night to discover an enemy from a friend, in any other manner than the one he used, the Captain of the cutter certainly appears to have been remiss in not sending out his boat at first as well as at last.
"Both the Cicero and her prize now lie at Bilboa, laden with valuable cargoes, and expected to sail from thence for North America on the 16th instant. The privateer alone, has one hundred and forty men on board, and should they not be permitted to sail at the time appointed, a very considerable expense must inevitably be incurred, because they would be obliged to wait for the next spring tides.