Major General Robert Howe to George Washington, 17 May 1781
From Major General Robert Howe
Boston 17th May 1781
Dear sir
I was honourd the Night before last with your Excellency’s favour1 & should have set out to day but both my servants were and are yet so ill that they are not able to attend me. they are now however in such a way that they can I persuade my self proceed by sunday or monday when I shall set out for camp or sooner if they can possibly Travel.2 The loss of the Confedracy with our Clothing is an Ugly Stroke to us, but was no more than I expected when I heard she was order’d for Philadelphia3 a great deal of Clothing came in the Dean Frigate for the French Army.4 Captain Nicholson tells me that as Count D’Estagne made use of a Good Deal of ours he imagines some of this might be obtain’d, if so as it comes (he tells me) in Bales not made up it would suit us very Well. A man just from New York Reports that the ship Protector of this State was taken & had Arrived there, the Patriots here seem very Anxious upon this Occasion.5 I have the Honour to be with the greatest Respect Dear sir Your Excellency’s Most obt hum. servt
Robt Howe
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. See GW to Howe, 7 May.
2. The following Sunday and Monday were 20 and 21 May. Howe assumed command at West Point upon his arrival in early June (see GW to Howe, 2 June, and Howe to GW, 4 June; see also , 136–37).
3. For the capture of the Continental frigate Confederacy, see William Heath’s second letter to GW, 25 April, n.4.
4. The Continental Journal, and Weekly Advertiser (Boston) for 19 April reported the arrival on 17 April of “the Deane Frigate, Capt Nicholson, in 25 Days from Cape-Francois.” The Continental frigate Deane had transported uniforms and over 200 thirteen-inch shells (see , 284).
5. William Smith, royal chief justice of New York, wrote in his memoirs for 7 May: “The Protector, a Rebel Frigate, brought in Yesterday by the Medea. Money from Hispaniola in her” (, 405; see also the entry for the same date in , 2:518, and Samuel Huntington to GW, this date, n.2). The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser (Boston) for 24 May published a report taken from the 8 May issue of the ”New-York (city) Gazette” that the Protector “was bound from Philadelphia, for Rhode-Island with a cargo of flour.” For the Massachusetts frigate Protector, see , 57.