Petition of Joseph Sprague for a commission for the schooner General Gates

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The Petition of the subscribers humbly showeth:

That the said petitioners have fitted at a great expense, the schooner General Gates, William Carlton commander, whom the honourable Council have lately commissioned, with six carriage guns, eight swivels, two cohorns, and twenty muskets, together with sundry other implements of war, having fifty men, and provisions for three months' cruise, with an intention of making captures of the vessels belonging to the enemies of the United States of America. To effect said purposes, your petitioners humbly pray, that the honourable Court would grant them three hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder upon your petitioners paying such a price for the same as the honourable. Court shall think proper. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.

JOSEPH SPRAGUE,
BENJ˙ GOODHUE, Jun˙,
EBEN˙ BECKFORD,
JOHN GARDNER, Jr˙

Salem, August 29, 1776.