Folios 169-170: John Clements, Regulating Captain, Dartmouth. Says he directed Lieutenant...

Folios 169-170: John Clements, Regulating Captain, Dartmouth. Says he directed Lieutenant William Taylor to take David Baxter alias Childs, a British seaman who volunteered for service on board the Sally Barker Windsor, an American schooner, Seth Hussey, Master to demand Baxter’s cloths and wages due to him. Hussey positively refused to give him his cloths or wages. Apparently he will soon be sailing to France and then to Senegal. Report of David Baxter on how British seamen in Boston of which he believes there are upwards of five hundred who have deserted from the Service obtain American citizenship in order to obtain a protection from impressment. The British Seaman gets a man or woman to go before a Public Notary and swear to the best of their knowledge he was born in America, name, age, and description. The Notary inserts this into a document which he gives the Seaman who takes it to the Custom House whereupon the Collectors Office issue without any further ceremony only the fees, gives him a certificate declaring he is an American citizen which he can use as Protection should he fall in with any of the Kings ships. That’s how Baxter got his. The Merchant wishing to employ the Seaman paying all the expenses.