ALEXANDER McDOUGALL TO JOSEPH WARREN.

New-York, June 12, 1775.

DEARSIR: Your favour to our Congress on the subject of powder, filled us with great distress, which was greatly increased by our utter inability to supply you. We, however, wrote immediately to Jersey, where we procured a small quantity, which, with all we could purchase here, amount to six hundred and fifty-five pounds. The Congress wrote by this day’s post to Governour Trumbull, to supply you with this quantity out of one of his easterly magazines, and we would replace.

For this purpose two Wagons set off with the above, or to be forwarded to you, in case he can’t comply with our request.

I am, Sir, in the utmost haste, your very humble servant,

ALEX. MCDOUGALL.

To Joseph Warren, Esq.

ALEXANDER McDOUGALL TO THE COMMITTEE FOR’ GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT.

New-York, June 12, 1775.

SIR: This accompanies six hundred and fifty-five pounds of powder, which you are requested to forward, with the letter to Mr. Warren, to Hartford, there to be subject to the direction of your Governour, unless he should order the powder to be deposited in some magazine in your Colony before it reaches that place. Please to give Mr. Willett a receipt for the quantity of barrels, and the weight. It will be most expedient that the conveyance be at night, for reasons too obvious to be mentioned, but which Mr. Willett will explain, if necessary.

I am, Sir, with great truth and regard, your humble servant,

ALEXANDER MCDOUGALL.

P. S. The barrels should always be coopered before they are changed from cart to cart, and if they want coopering, it should be done with wooden tools.

Greenwich, June 13, 1775, five o’clock, P. M.

Received the above, and forwarded the same from Committee to Committee to Hartford, and if the Governour thinks best, to the Army at Cambridge. The powder is contained in two whole barrels, two half barrels, and fourteen quarter casks.

We are, gentlemen, your humble servants,

NEHEMIAH MEAD, JOHN MACKAY, AMOS MEAD, TITUS MEAD,

Committee.

To the Committee at Stamford.

Stamford, June 13, 1775, eight o’clock, P. M.

Received from the Committee of Greenwich the quantity of powder as before desired. By us:

JOHN HAIT, SAMUEL BROKER, PETER HAIT, SAMUEL HUTTON,

Committee.

Newport, Rhode-Island, June 12, 1775.

On Monday last the Honourable General Assembly of this Colony met at East-Greenwich, and passed the following Act:

“This Assembly, at the Session held at Providence on the first Wednesday in May last, having passed an Act prohibiting his Honour the Deputy Governour and the Assistants, from administering the oath of office to the Honourable Joseph Wanton, Esq., who was elected Governour of this Colony for the present year; and declaring all acts by him done in the pretended capacity of Governour, null and void, until he shall be engaged in open General Assembly, and with the consent of the General Assembly, &c.: and the said Joseph Wanton having appeared before this Assembly, and demanded that the oath of office be administered to him; and this Assembly having taken the same into consideration, do vote and resolve, and it is voted and resolved, that the said Joseph Wanton hath not given satisfaction to this Assembly, and that the said recited Act, passed at the last Session, continue and be in force until the rising of the General Assembly at the next Session; and that this Act be immediately published, by inserting a copy thereof in the Newport Mercury, and Providence Gazette.”

Colony of Rhode-Island, &c.

The above is a true copy of an Act passed by the General Assembly, at the Session held at East-Greenwich, on the second Monday in June, A. D. 1775.

Witness:

HENRY WARD, Secretary.

Whitehall, London, July 18, 1775.

Lieutenant-General Gage, in his letters to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated June 12, 1775, gives an account that the Town of Boston continued to be surrounded by a large body of rebel Provincials, and that all communication with the country was cut off; that the rebels had been burning houses, and driving sheep off an island that has easy communication with the main land, which drew on a skirmish with some Marines, who drove the rebels away; but that an armed schooner, that had been sent between the island and the main land, having got on shore at high water, there was no possibility of saving her, for as the tide fell, she was left quite dry, and burned by the rebels. Two men were killed, and a few wounded.

The first embarkation of Troops from Ireland, consisting of three Regiments of Infantry and one of Light Cavalry, had arrived at Boston; and General Gage had published a Proclamation, offering His Majesty’s pardon to all persons who should immediately lay down their arms, (except Samuel Adams and John Hancock,) declaring all persons to be traitors who should aid and assist, or hold any correspondence with the rebels; and ordering martial law to be in force within the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, so long as the present unhappy occasions shall necessarily require it.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM GENERAL GAGE TO LORD DARTMOUTH.

Boston, June 12, 1775.

It has been mentioned to your Lordship, that the disaffected generally receive very quick intelligence of what is doing at home, and that those who have committed themselves most notoriously in acts of treason and rebellion, fled upon the arrival of a ship from England, some days before the Nautilus and Falcon sloops reached this place with your despatches. From what has passed, your Lordship will judge that a plan for rebellion has been long conceived, and the people’s minds ripened for it, and it is now too open and manifest to need the opinion of the law officers. I hear that the rebels, after surprising Ticonderoga, made incursions and commenced hostilities upon the frontier of the Province of Quebeck, which will justify General Carleton to raise bodies of Canadians and Indians to attack them in return; and we need not be tender of calling on the Savages, as the rebels have shown us the example, by bringing as many Indians down against us here as they could collect.*

PROCLAMATION BY GOVERNOUR GAGE.

By His Excellency the Honourable THOMAS GAGE, Esquire, Governour and Commander-in-Chief, in and over His Majesty’s Province of MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, and Vice-Admiral of the same:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, the infatuated multitude, who have long suffered themselves to be conducted by certain well known incendiaries and traitors, in a fatal progression of crimes against the constitutional authority of the State, have at

* It is a singular fact that the first intelligence of the capture of Ticonderoga was communicated to General Gage through a letter from Doctor Joseph Warren to Mr. John Scollay, dated May 17th, at Watertown, just one month before he was slain at Bunker’s-Hill. A copy of the letter was procured by General Gage, and sent by him to Lord Dartmouth. The following is an extract:

“Thus a war is begun, which I have frequently said to you and others would, if not timely prevented, overturn the British Empire; but I hope, after a full conviction both of our ability and resolution to maintain our rights, Britain will act with that wisdom which is so absolutely necessary for her preservation; this I most heartily wish, as I feel a warm affection still for the Parent State.” Sparks’s Washington, Vol. 3, p. 510.