Letter to the Committee of Secrecy at Philadelphia

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In Provincial Congress, New-York, August 16, 1775.

SIR: It is with reluctance that we make the present application, but being disappointed in the arrival of a vessel which we had despatched about three months since for a supply of gunpowder, and having freely exhausted our small stock for the Continental service, we now find ourselves necessitated to ask some immediate assistance from you. We have supplied the Continental camp before Boston with sixteen hundred and fifty-five pounds of powder, and Ticonderoga with three hundred pounds, and have been obliged to send to the east end of Long-Island all that we could procure in this City, so that we now remain perfectly destitute. We must therefore entreat that you would oblige us with the loan of about one ton of gunpowder, or as much more as you conveniently can spare; we shall take care to replace it from the first we shall receive.

The present exigency of this Colony, we make no doubt, will induce your immediate compliance with the above request, and we therefore only further add our desire that the powder may be sent with all despatch to the care of the Committee at Newark.

By order.

The Hon˙ Benjamin Franklin and the other Gentlemen, Members of the Committee of Safety or Secrecy, at Philadelphia.

P˙ S. We beg that the powder to be sent may be put up in tight casks.