George Washington Papers

To George Washington from the New York Provincial Congress, 4 October 1775

From the New York Provincial Congress

In Provincial Congress for the Colony of New York
[New York] Octr 4th 1775.

Sir

The inclosed state of Information is of such a Nature, that it is conceived highly proper to communicate it to Your Excellency with all dispatch.1 We are most respectfully Your Excellency’s Obedient humble Servants

By Order

Nathll Woodhull Presidt2

LS, DLC:GW.

1This document, dated 3 Oct. at New York, contains two accounts of enemy reinforcements coming to America. Capt. John Hamilton, who sailed from Liverpool on 8 Aug. and arrived at New York on 2 Oct., reported that he heard at Liverpool and read in the London newspapers “that 30 Battalions & 4 Squadrons of Dragoons, in all 10,000 Men were to Embark at Embden for Boston . . . that by common Report they were to Sail the middle of Augt—that they were to be commanded by a genl Officer of their own Country.” In a letter of 26 July a gentleman in Falmouth wrote a friend in New York that “it is confidently said that 10,000 Hanoverians & some Regiments from great Britain are to be sent out to Boston as a reinforcement to Genl Gage’s Army; that genl Gage is to be recalled at his own request & that Sir Jeffery Amherst is to succeed him” (DLC:GW).

2Nathaniel Woodhull (1722–1776) became president of the New York provincial congress on 28 August. As a brigadier general of the New York militia, Woodhull was captured on Long Island in August 1776 and died of a wound a few weeks later.

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