To Benjamin Franklin from [William Greene], [18 July? 1775]
From [William Greene5]
AL: American Philosophical Society
[July 18?, 1775]
Our Men have Taken [2?] Islan and6 brought of Eaght hundred Sheep and Catle of One an Other five hundred Sheep and Catle of the other and a Manawars barge with fore Men. Col. Robenson has Taken long Island and brught of Two hundred Sheep and Some Catle and Eaght Men and One Young Lade with out the loss of a Man. Two of the Islands was taken last Week and the Other this week. July th 18. Sickly in Boston the Solders and Inhabatants Die fast. The names of the Other Islands Deer Island and Petteiks.7
5. Some differences from his usual handwriting may be explained by the fact that he crammed his note into a small space above his wife’s, which is the preceding document. BF acknowledged both in writing to Jane Mecom below, Aug. 2, 1775.
6. The text, almost illegible at this point, appears to read “Taken [torn] Islan and and.”
7. The islands were raided, not taken, to deplete British supplies; and two of them were attacked not “last Week” but six weeks earlier. The foray against Pettick’s, west of Hull, was on May 31 and that against Deer Island, off Pulling Point, on June 2. Barns and a stock of hay were burned on July 13 on Long Island, at the entrance to the harbor. Richard Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston . . . (4th ed., Boston, 1873), pp. 110, 225.