Notebooks : 1740-1816.

            John Peebles was commissioned an ensign in the British Army on 23 August 1763, a lieutenant on 31 March 1770, a captain lieutenant and captain on 5 October 1777. He saw action in the American Revolution while a lieutenant (latterly captain) with the 42nd or Royal Highland Regiment of Foot, a Scottish regiment formed in 1739. He died in 1824. In 1787, a John Peebles from the 42nd Regiment received lot numbers 79 and 85, totaling 124 acres, on the Nashwaak River in the Parish of Saint Mary's, York County, New Brunswick.            

            The collection consists of 13 Notebooks, 12 April 1776 - 2 March 1782, belonging to Lieutenant, later Captain, John Peebles of the 42nd, or Royal Highland Regiment during the American Revolution.
 The Notebooks begin on Reel 1 with Peebles' journal describing his voyage from Greenock to New York via Boston and Halifax on board a troop transport from 12 April - 4 August 1776. The Notebooks follow his military experiences with the Regiment in a chronological order: a journal of operations in the vicinity of New York; the expedition to Rhode Island and operations in New Jersey; operations under General Cornwallis in the vicinity of Philadelphia; operations in the vicinity of New York; the evacuation of Philadelphia; the expedition to Charleston and the siege and capture of Charleston; the return to Staten Island; operations in the vicinity of New York and reports of the desertion from the Americans of General Benedict Arnold and the hanging of Major Andre by the Americans; and the abortive expedition for the relief of General Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown. 
 Reel 2 contains correspondence and documents relevant to the American Revolution. Included are an indenture for servitude of a negro boy; a bundle of abstracts and accounts of Captain Peebles' company of the 42nd Regiment; a copy of the proceedings of a Treaty held at Easton, Pennsylvania between commissioners on behalf of the United States and a number of Indian chiefs on behalf of the Six Nation Indians; a note on the line of battle of the fleet under the command of Admiral Thomas Graves, Sandy Hook; a copy of a letter published in the Antigua Chronicle, criticizing the way in which the war in America was being waged; and a number of commissions, letters and other documents.                

            There is no table of contents at the beginning of each reel.
A table of contents has been compiled for the Loyalist Collection Inventory and is available in print.