THE ASPINWALL PAPERS. DEAR SIR, WATTS TO MONCKTON. NEW YORK, 3a Sept. 1763. My last was 25th ult to the care of Doct: Catherwood through Bristol, I have little to add to it upon business, but to inclose our third Bill on the Contractors for £500 St I gave Deale a jog lately, but he says, he has not been able to collect any good sum together since the last & only payment of £1015 17 6- I have accounted to M: Hardy for the post chaise £120- & paid your subscription to the Greenwich Road £20. which goes on pretty well. By the papers you will see Coll: Bouquet got to Pittsburg with the loss of fifty kill'd & as many wounded out of about four hundred, his success tho' dearly bought enough, put us in tolerable spirits, till last night Capt" Dalyell's servant came from Detroit with the following very disagreeable piece of news On the thirty first day of July about midnight, he left Detroit with two hundred and fifty men to surprize a number of Indians who lay about two miles and a half from the Fort but before he reached them, they got intelligence of his coming & with a much superior number were prepared to receive him, the action grew warm & in it he had received already two wounds when a third shot laid him dead on the spot, near forty of the party were wounded & twelve or fifteen kill'd, the enemy its said lost six or eight kill'd and about double the number wounded, Capt. Gray of Gage's or rather the 80th & Lieut. Brown of the 55th are among our wounded but likely to do well- The party when they found they had the worst of it retired back to the Fort as decently as they could-Cap Dalyell's death concerns us much as his conduct was always very uniform. & sensible I am always D: S: Yrs. very truly JN WATTS. No matters of Government at all transacted since you left us except proroguing the Assembly Things seem at present in a deep sleep, the old gentleman still in the Country We cannot make a Council to do business without a universal summons from all quarters, Jersys, Orange & Jamaica - I wish M: Reade was in M Martin's room. & some body else in M Pratt's — SAME TO SAME. DEAR SIR, NEW YORK, 17th Sept. 1763. On the 3a inst. I wrote you by Lieut. Hill who embark'd in the Marlborough Transport, & sent our Papers up to that time By Captain Basset who goes in this packet I send you the papers by themselves, as I am afraid you will think them hardly worth the postage Mr. Hardy & his family & Major Harvey go likewise in the packet, but I believe their approaches to London will be but slow, the one from their number & luggage the other from inclination. Deale has yet paid me no more money, I fancy it grows a scarce commodity, or he negligent. I will soon know which & see to remedy either, as time cannot make matters better, it may worse. Unfortunately for us at this advanced season, one of the |