George Washington Papers

To George Washington from the Continental Congress Secret Committee, 16 May 1776

From the Continental Congress Secret Committee

Philada May 16th 1776

sir

The enclosed letters will discover to your Excellency that the Congress have ordered Two hundred & forty four Muskets to be forwarded from Rhode Island to New York for the Continental Service and as it is probable you may think proper to give some directions about the mode of getting them safe down we trouble you with these open letters that you may have an opportunity of forwarding them & of adding thereto what you may think Necessary.1 We have the honor to be Your Excellencys Obedt hble servts

By order of the Secret Committee

Robt Morris, Chair Man

LS, in Morris’s writing, DLC:GW.

1Congress directed the secret committee on 14 May to send GW “the muskets that are at Newport” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 4:357). The enclosures included Morris’s letter of this date to Nicholas and John Brown (see GW to the Browns, 17 May, and Nicholas Brown to GW, 27 May 1776) and one apparently of the same date to the Providence firm of Clark & Nightingale (see Clark & Nightingale to GW, 27 May 1776). For GW’s reply to the secret committee, see his letter to Morris of 20 May.

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