GENERAL GATES TO GENERAL SULLIVAN.

Head-Quarters, October 23, 1775.

SIR: This will be presented to your hands by a First Lieutenant of Colonel Thompson’s Battalion of Riflemen, Who has under his command a party of experienced Riflemen, whom the General thinks you might dispose of to advantage, should the enemy attempt to set fire to the Town of Portsmouth, as he is informed the entrance of the harbour is narrow, and much commanded by high ground and rocks. The officer is directed to wait your commands the moment he arrives at Portsmouth.

I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

HORATIO GATES, Adj. Gen.

To Brigadier-General Sullivan, Commanding the Forces of the United Colonies at Portsmouth.

COL. JOSEPH REED TO THE SELECTMEN OF BOSTON.

Roxbury, October 23, 1775.

GENTLEMEN: I have it in command from his Excellency General Washington to acquaint you that your letter to William Philips, Esq., came in course to Head-Quarters. His Excellency wishes to show every mark of attention to the Selectmen of Boston; at the same time he thinks Col. Robertson cannot expect his request to be complied with without a suitable return. He has therefore directed me to say, that Master Lovell, who has suffered a long and injurious confinement, can be set at liberty, and exchanged for the friend of Colonel Robertson. The latter will be immediately sent for to Hartford for that purpose, and the exchange made as soon as possible.

I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, with much respect, your most obedient humble servant,

JOSEPH REED.

To John Scollay and others, Selectmen of the Town of Boston.

LETTER TO A GENTLEMAN IN EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.

Boston, October 23, 1775.

SIR: Within these two or three years, we have had most pompous accounts published of the several manufactures carrying on here; and by the English prints I find the very same falsehoods repeated there, no doubt to answer some wicked purpose. That the world may know the real true state to be depended upon of the manufactures going on in this Province, I send you the following by Captain Watson, of the Kitty, bound to Bristol; and am, as before, yours, &c.

A Letter concerning the AMERICANManufactures.

The New-England Colonies are not well adapted for raising and keeping large stocks of sheep, for they require a spacious range of pasture, and the benefit of getting at the ground in winter, which they cannot do where the snow falls deep, and continues long, as generally happens in this Province; for this reason, the greatest number of sheep are raised and kept on the sea-coasts and islands, where the snow does not lie so long as it doth in the inland parts. The wool raised on these islands is nearly as good as that in England, if proper care be taken of the sheep; but, as they are not so large, they rarely produce more than a fleece from two to two pounds and an half per season, one sheep with another, upon the best computation that has been made. There is not more wool produced annually here than what is barely sufficient to make stockings for the inhabitants; and, notwithstanding all the boasted publications of our increasing manufactures, we neither can make nor have made any more woollens than heretofore, for we have always worked up all our fleeces; have never exported any, consequently cannot exceed what we used to do. I am informed that in Philadelphia, and the Colonies to the southward, their wool is so coarse that it will make no cloth but of the lowest sort, and every body knows the nigher to the line the sheep grow smoother, inclining even to hair.

The New-Englanders have every advantage for making linen cloth, as our soil produces (with proper culture) the greatest crops of good flax, and the exportation of the flax-seed (for which we have always a ready sale in Ireland) will nearly pay the cost of raising our flax; and in regard to the bleaching, it is not half so expensive as in that Kingdom, because we have much more sun, and plenty of wood-ashes and pot-ashes, articles more necessary for the above purpose; yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, the linens made in these Colonies are mere trifles in comparison of what are used in them.

We have attempted, within these thirty-five years, the making of nails three times; but the attempt always miscarried, since it was found, on repeated trials, that these commodities could be imported from England much cheaper than made here; and, as most of the dwellings here are made of wood, every house takes twenty times the quantity of nails that it would do in England.

It may be asked here, why people, under all these advantages, do not carry on such manufactures as their Country is so well adapted to succeed in. The answer is very plain: because every man can avail himself of one or two hundred acres of land for a mere bagatelle, with which he can support himself and family easier than by going into manufactures.

Then it follows, of course, that, by the American plan of non-importation, they will suffer more than Great Britain; for, in two years’ time, they will not have clothes to defend them from the severity of the weather, nor will they have nails to build their houses. Besides, if their ports are kept well blocked up, they will not be able to procure either rum, sugar, molasses, coffee, cocoa, &c., and yet so great use has been made of these articles in all the Colonies, that they are almost become necessaries of life; by this means they can have no other drink but water, and a little ordinary cider, from October to June, and of that not near a sufficiency for the inhabitants, for all their beer is made of molasses.

The people in the New-England Colonies (large sea port Towns excepted) live on salt provisions more than three-quarters of the year. The stopping of salt alone will prove their ruin, and, on the best inquiries I can make, they will suffer much this year from the scarcity of that article; so that their own plan of non-exportation, and the restraining act well put in execution, will cause such heavy sufferings among them, that they must be obliged to accept of any terms prescribed by Great Britain, (before two years be over,) and the more especially when they will have a large Army ravaging their Country, which will, in a great measure, put a stop to their agriculture.

ADDRESS OF THE HIGH SHERIFF, ETC., OF THE COUNTY OF

DEVON.

Address of the High Sheriff, Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders of the County of Devon, presented to His Majesty, by John Parker, Esq., one of their Representatives in Parliament; Charles Warwick Bampfylde, Esq., one of the Representatives in Parliament for the City of Exeter; John Dyke Acland, one of the Representatives in Parliament for Callington, in Cornwall; and Henry Arthur Fellowes, Esq., High Sheriff of the said County of Devon.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.