Francis Fauquier letter to Charles Steuart, 1762 December 9

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W^ms.burgh Dec^r. 9^th. 1762

Sir,

I laid your Letter concerning your
Conversation with the Spanish Gentlemen, and other
Matters relating to them, before the Council, who were
pleased to express their approbation of your prudent
Conduct, in explaining the Nature of our Laws to those
Gentlemen : But if no Evidence will appear against
them, they must of course be acquitted. Nothing can
be resumed in regard to those who were acquitted
by the Court of Enquiry, unless they can be bound
over to their good Behaviour. A proclamation was
orderd for the further Discovery of the principal
Actors in this Riot, as you proposed thinking it might
be of Service. Particular Enquiry ought to be made
about those who fired into the House, by which
Murder ensued.

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Your Courtesy and Civility to these unhappy
Strangers was applauded, tho' it was thought, this good
Disposition carried you a little too far in speaking
of my going down to them ; it was what I should have
done at first, if it had been according to the Rules of
Decorum ; as I stand here in a higher Rank than Don
Pedro does at his Court by the Command of a Man
of War. The Spaniards who are puntilious in this
point, understand this very well, so will most pro-
-bably consider it only as an overstrained Civility, and
it had better rest so than have any thing more said
about it, one way or the other. If the Gentlemen had
come up to Williamsburgh, I might have thought it
right to have returned the Compliment, or if Don
Pedro had been in Danger of his Life I might have
dispensed with this piece of Punctilio necessary to
be preserved between the Officers of different Courts.
In continuing your Information on these Matters

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You will oblige

Sir
Y^r. very hum: Serv^t.
Fran: Fauquier

P.S. I recd your Letter of the 25^th. ult^o. with one
from Don Pedro Bermudez in Relation to the
Crew of the Transport, for w^ch. I have already
provided. Please to make my Compliments
to the Spanish Gentlemen & Lady

F.F.

To M^r. Cha^s. Steuart.

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The honble Francis Fauquier Esq^r.
Williamsburg December 9. 1762

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