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Provincial Congress, New-York, June 17, 1775.
SIR: Being well informed that four Regiments, containing near three thousand effective men, were sailed in transports for this City, we take the liberty to request the assistance of those brave sons of freedom who are under your command. We are this instant further informed, that the Mercury, ship-of-war, was cruising upon our coast, and is now at Sandy-Hook, to order those transports to Boston immediately, and did, on Tuesday last, thirty leagues to the southeast of the Hook, deliver her orders to the Old Spy, man-of-war, now a transport, with part of the Forty-Fourth Regiment on board, which immediately altered her course. From hence we conclude that a very capital stroke is meditated against our brethren of the
By order of the Provincial Congress:
PETER V˙B˙ LIVINGSTON, President.
To Major-General Wooster, Greenwich.
New-York Congress to General Wooster
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Massachusetts-Bay. You best can determine, Sir, whether it is proper, on this occasion, for the forces under your command to march westward. But we are led to believe that it is of more important consequence to secure the several passes, with which nature hath bounteously fortified the eastern country, that if some unexpected chance of war should prove fatal to us in the first contest, the enemy may, by such means, receive a double check in his career of vengeance. We beg you to transmit this intelligence to the Provincial Camp with the utmost despatch. We are, Sir, your most humble servants,