Thursday June the 14th 1781.
This morning Mr. Jennings and Mr. Greves came here with An English Gazette; in which there is the detail of the action between Cornwallis and Green. Cornwallis writes1 that he has obtain’d a compleat victory; but he has thought proper to run away to Wilmington, General Green is at Camden; Cornwallis has made a Proclamation of pardon to every body (murderers excepted) but does not mention of one single man’s having came over to him yet; his army was two days without any provisions. He writes in one part of his letter that a defensive war wou’d be certain destruction to the british forces; in another, he says he can only act upon the defensive; therefore by his own confession let him act after what manner he will; it is certain destruction to the british there.
Mr. Jennings and Mr. Greves breakfasted here; I did not go out in the forenoon: Mr. Waldo din’d with us; after dinner I went and took a walk with Mr. Dana. We went to the printer’s of the Amsterdam Gazette for a couple of old numbers for Mr. Dana, We Walk’d to the Western market; and look’d about the shops, and then came home.
Continued From Yesterday from Guthries Grammar. Chap: 4th §:6th.2
1. Cornwallis to Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 17 March (two letters), Cornwallis to Germain, 18 April, with his Proclamation of 18 March, all published in the London Chronicle for the Year 1781, 49:537–540 (5–7 June).
2. On the next two and one-half pages in the Diary JQA has copied the first paragraph of the section entitled “population, inhabitants, manners, customs and diversions,” from , p. 401.