To George Washington from the Massachusetts Council, 1 August 1777
From the Massachusetts Council
Council Chamber, Boston
Augt 1st ½ past 10 o’Clock P.M. 1777
Sr
the inclosed is a Copy of a Letter this moment recd from the Brigadier of the County of Essex: The destination of the Fleet is to us yet uncertain; as soon as further intelligence is obtained, Your Excellency may depend upon it’s being forwarded with all possible dispatch.1 In the Name & behalf of the Council I am With great Respect Sr Your most Obedt hble Servt
W. Sever Presidt
LS, DLC:GW; copy, DNA:PCC, item 152.
1. The enclosed copy of Brig. Gen. Michael Farley’s letter to the Massachusetts council, written at Ipswich, Mass., on “Friday [1 Aug.] Morning 1 o’Clock,” reads: “I have just receiv’d Information by Express from Lt Colo. [David] Warner of Glouster that a Fleet of an hundred Sail of large Vessels were seen from the High Lands in that Town Standing to the Northward at 3 o’Clock Yesterday Afternoon. I thought it my duty to give your honors the earliest Intelligence. . . . P.S. On my receiving the above Intelligence I sent to the several Colonels in my Brigade to be in immediate Readiness” (DLC:GW). A second copy of Farley’s letter, enclosed in Heath’s letter to GW of this date, is also located in DLC:GW; a third copy, retained by Heath, is in MHi: Heath Papers; and a fourth copy, made from an unfound copy of the letter that GW enclosed in his letter to Hancock of 9 Aug., is in DNA:PCC, item 169. The latter three copies lack the postscript, however.