An accident which has very seldom happened to me in the course of thirty Years business, has deprived me of the honor of making an earlier & puts it out of my power even now of making a more proper acknowledgement of three of Your Excellency's favors which I remember to have been indebted for antecedent to the receipt of this of the 3d Inst. which now lies before me.(1) Those, in removing my Desks & their Contents from one part of the House to a more convenient, I have mislaid among my private Papers, & after as much

   I recollect however & shall never forget a new obligation which in one of them Your Excellency was pleased to lay on me by a very kind notice of my Sons behavior at Rhode Island & that you had returned the Gold which I sent to Head Quarters by Jones (2) & also the Letters of Governor Johnstone, Mr. Oswald & Mr Manning.(3) In the present circumstances of Great Britain, rendered deplorable by the waste of another Campaign on this Continent, by the loss of Dominique in the West Indies & of a great Marine battle at her own door, it is exceedingly difficult to determine what will be her next step, although I do not think it is, to see the only measures remaining for her salvation. With respect to South Carolina, I cannot yet treat the Idea of an attack as altogether chimerical. I am well warranted to say the British Administration held that State & Georgia in reserve, for a stroke of necessity which might at any time be made with Success & they well know the immense value of those States & great things may be done by drawing their forces to one point-they may have indeed stayed a day too late. Be that as it will, I have fully advertised my Countrymen, & if the alarm shall prove to have been unnecessarily sounded, their intermediate exertions towards a defence will do them no real injury.

   Congress have ordered the proceedings of the Court Martial on Major Genl. St. Clair to be printed,(4) & have appointed Friday the 16th for considering & determining on those of the Court on Major Genl. Lee.

   I have nothing further to offer at present Sir, but the repeated assurances of being with the highest sense of Respect & Obligation, Your Excellency's Most obedient & Most humble servant,

    Henry Laurens.