Letter from Lord Stirling to Samuel Tucker

v5:133

New-York, March 3, 1776.

DEAR SIR: From intelligence which General Lee has received this evening from the eastward, it is highly probable that the whole or a very great part of the Ministerial Army at Boston are already embarked, and on their way to this place. I am, therefore, commanded by General Lee to inform you it is his opinion that the whole (or such part as is ready) of the Third Battalion raised in New-Jersey for the Continental service do, as soon as possible, by companies, as soon as they can be completed, armed and accoutred, march to this place on the first intimation. Care will be taken to have boats ready to bring them over from Paulus Hook to the Hoboken ferries.

The General also desires me to repeat to you, that it may be of the highest importance that the arrangement of guards on Staten- Island, and the several places mentioned in my letter to you of yesterday, should immediately take place.

I must take this opportunity of informing you that the first Battalion of New-Jersey Troops is now deficient of at least two hundred stand of arms, which I should before have urged stronger for had it not been that I knew the difficulties your Congress were under in equipping and despatching Colonel Maxwell' s Regiment to the northward. If we had been supplied with money for this purpose, we might, by purchase, have picked up in New-Jersey and in this place a sufficiency to complete them; but I never yet have had the command of a single dollar which has been allotted for that service. With money, we might still supply the regiment with many; and if Colonel Lowrey, who, I hope, is on his way to this place, does not supply money for this purpose, and for blankets, I hope the Congress of New-Jersey will pay attention to it. If Colonel Lowrey should fall in your way, I must beg the favour of you to let him know there is the highest necessity of his being here immediately.

Give me leave to add, that it is my opinion that it will, at this time, be highly necessary for the Congress of New-Jersey to continue sitting, or that they have a Committee of Safety to sit daily, until publick affairs are more certainly arranged, and that their deliberations and determinations never were more necessary than at this juncture.

I am your most obedient, humble servant,

STIRLING.

To Samuel Tucker, Esq˙, President of the Congress of New-Jersey.