Peter Penet among the Oneida Indians. 



281 



tion should be your correspondents here than it is in Eng- 

 land, because they have an influence with the government, 

 which those of an inferior order have not. Of this order is 

 Mr. Gruel, and still lower Mr. Penet ; but the credit and 

 character of the former are exceedingly well established." 1 



About two years later, we find Mr. Penet petitioning 

 congress for encouragement in the establishment of an 

 armory, and on the 2nd of January 1779, the committee to 

 whom the petition of Messrs Penet and Couloux, pro- 

 posing to establish a manufactory of fire arms, side arms 

 &c, had been referred, made a favorable report. They 

 proposed to contract for one hundred thousand muskets 

 and bayonets, at twenty six and a half livres each, in specie 2 

 of which twenty thousand were to be delivered in two and 

 a half years, and the rest in six or seven years. They 

 would also undertake to make any other kind of arms. 

 The board of war was authorized to contract upon these 

 terms, and on fhe 3d of February, the name of the con- 

 tracting firm was changed to Penet, Win del & Co. 3 



This arrangement was never carried into effect proba- 

 bly from the inability of Penet to meet his part of the 

 engagement. 



Among the commissions received by Penet from the 

 American Colonies, was an order from Pennsylvania for 

 arms, munitions, standards for the use of her troops, and a 

 seal with the state arms engraved. In a letter dated at 

 Nantes, May 20, 1780, apologizing for delay and explain- 

 ing its causes, he solicits the appointment of state agent, 

 and reminds the governor of a promise made before his 

 departure, that he would make a motion in his behalf in 

 the council, promising that if he could be so happy as to 



1 Diplomatic Correspondence, ii, 30. 

 2 Equal to $4.93. 



3 Journal of Congress, Fol well's Edition p. 4, 31. 



