INTRODUCTION.

THE introduction to the first volume of this calendar having described the whole of the collection, little remains to be said of a prefatory nature to the present volume.

The manuscripts being calendared in chronological order, this second volume begins with the month of August, 1779, and ends with that of June, 1782, shortly after the departure of Sir Henry Clinton from New York for home and the arrival of Sir Guy Carleton to take his place. It includes within these dates such events as the occupation of the post at Penobscot by Col. Maclean and the destruction of the American fleet by Sir George Collier in August, 1779 (pp. 12-19), the expedition to which place was recounted at the end of the first volume; the siege of Savannah by the French fleet under Comte d'Estaing and the American land forces under Maj. Gen. Lincoln in September and October of the same year-a siege successfully withstood by Brig. Gen. Prevost; the expedition to Charlestown, South Carolina, undertaken by Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Arbuthnot from New York at the beginning of the year 1780; the siege of that town, and its capitulation on the 12th May. In June, Sir Henry returned to New York, leaving the command in the south to Earl Cornwallis, whose march through South and North Carolina into Virginia and its disastrous ending at Yorktown are indicated by numerous entries throughout these pages. The outbreak of hostilities with Spain was signalized in America by the proclamation of American Independence at New Orleans (p. 31), and followed by the invasion of West Florida by the Spaniards under Don Bernardo de Galvez and capture of the forts on the Mississippi in the autumn of 1779, the taking of Mobile in March 1780, and the surrender of Pensacola to them in May, 1781, all of which are described in the letters from the military commander there-Maj. Gen. John Campbell.

The correspondence with the post at Halifax is continued from the previous volume, as is that with the Governor of GeorgiaSir James Wright, and of East Florida--Governor Patrick Tonyn, while the letters of Lt. Gen. Alexander Leslie, who succeeded Earl

Cornwallis in the southern command at Charlestown, record the progress of events at the latter place.

In March and April, 1782, the question of assisting the West Indies, and especially Jamaica, attacked or threatened as they were by the French and Spanish forces, led to discussions in the council of general officers at New York as to whether detachments should be made from New York or Charlestown. The decision to detach from Charlestown met with opposition from Gen. Leslie and the inhabitants of that post generally, and when finally a detachment under General O'Hara sailed, Rodney's victory over the Comte de Grasse on the 12th of April had for some time been an accomplished fact. An attempt on Jamaica was still, however, fully expected (pp. 490, 525 and 526).

The resolution of the House of Commons against continuing the war (p. 407) leads, towards the close of the volume, to preparations for the evacuation of the southern provinces, but the retention of East Florida as a refuge for the loyalists of the neighbouring provinces is being ardently pressed.

As already stated in the introduction to the first volume, this calendar was well advanced before the death of Mr. B. F. Stevens, and is seen through the press by his successor, Mr. Henry J. Brown.

CALENDAR

OF

MANUSCRIPTS

IN THE

ROYAL INSTITUTION.

VOL. II.

MICHAEL FRANCKLIN to GENERAL SIR HENRY CLINTON.

1779, August 2. Halifax, Nova Scotia.-Sends extract of letter from Lord G. Germain by which he is directed to dispose the Indians of his department to co-operate with the King's troops.

"The Indians of Nova Scotia consist of about five hundred familys, all Roman Catholicks, containing near three thousand persons, who are scattered throughout the whole province, and live entirely by hunting and fishing.

"In 1776 The Council of the Massachusetts Bay by means of presents and the adress of several enterprizing rebells, prevailed on the Indians to enter into a treaty by which they engaged to furnish six hundred men to join Mr. Washington's army; that year some of them joined the rebells, in an attack on Fort Cumberland.

"In 1777 I was appointed Superintendant of the Indian Affairs in Nova Scotia, in the Spring, the rebells have taken post at St. John's River; the Indians were assembled, and on the point of joining them, when I accompanied Brigade Major Studholme to that river with troops, and detachments of my own, and Col. Butler's Militia; the rebells were defeated and dislodged, and the Indians obliged to separate from the rebells.

"In 1778 the Americans prevailed on the Indians of St. John's River, to return the British flag to Fort Howe, and send in a declaration of war, and even went the length to take several vessels, and to commit other acts of hostility; it was then judged necessary I should repair there, on my arrival, they came in, and were prevailed upon to accomodate their differences, and to deliver up the treaty they had entered into with the Massachusetts to give me some of

A