To Benjamin Franklin from Ebenezer Hazard, 3 May 1776
From Ebenezer Hazard8
ALS: American Philosophical Society
New York May 3d. 1776
Sir,
We have no News here, except that the last Phila. Post brought Advice that the Roebuck of 44 Guns was on Shore on the East Bank of Brandywine, and that eight Row Gallies, the Province Ship and Reprisal were gone down to take her.9 The Phila. Post is not arrived today, and we are not yet informed whether they have been successful.
Mr. Measum writes me that the Genl. has ordered him to frank Soldiers Letters.1
Yesterday a Detachment of Troops sailed for Albany.2 I enclose Holt’s Paper3 and am Sir your very humble Servant
Eben Hazard
P.S. Should any Thing remarkable happen in Canada I beg to be favored with a Line.
Addressed: Doctor Franklin / Montreal. / If not there, to be forwarded.
8. The New York postmaster. See the note on BF’s letter to him above, Aug. 3.
9. H.M.S. Roebuck, ordered to open the Delaware, ran aground on April 28 on Brandywine Shoal. Capt. Wickes in the Continental ship Reprisal and Capt. Thomas Read in the provincial ship Montgomery were ordered to attack her, but she got afloat before they arrived. Clark, Wickes, pp. 9–10; Naval Docs., IV, 1315–16.
1. George Measam, a Montreal merchant sympathetic to the American cause, was postmaster of the province during the occupation and fled with the retreating army. Force, 5 Amer. Arch., I, 725–6; see also BF to Adams below, Aug. 28.
2. The six battalions that Congress had ordered Washington to send. They were commanded by Maj. Gen. John Sullivan. Fitzpatrick, Writings of Washington, V, 7–8. Sullivan took over the command in Canada at the end of the campaign.
3. The N.-Y. Journal. For John Holt, the publisher, see the DAB.