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
Nathll Woodhull Presidt2
LS, DLC:GW.
1. This 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).
2. Nathaniel 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.