To George Washington from Brigadier General John Thomas, 10 July 1775
From Brigadier General John Thomas
Rexbuy [Roxbury] Camp [Mass.] July the 10th: 1775
Sir
A Maister of a vesel that Came out of Boston Saturday Night in order to Take Charge of a vesel at S[t]oneington in Coniticut Loaded with malases to Purseed to New york as he Saith his aquaintance in the Country Infor[m] that he has bin a Suspected Person & I Think it my Duty to forward him to your Exelency for you[r] Exemi[n]ation[.]1 I am Sir with Respect you[r] mest obeduet Humble Servt
Jno. Thomas
ALS, M-Ar: Revolution Letters.
1. The shipmaster was William Lightly, and the vessel at Stonington, Conn., was the brigantine Nancy, which had recently arrived there under the command of Capt. Thomas Davis with a large cargo of molasses belonging to the widow and children of Joshua Winslow, a Boston Loyalist. The ultimate destination of the Nancy, the Patriots suspected, was not New York but Boston. On 12 July the Massachusetts provincial congress ordered Lightly to be confined in jail at Concord and approved a letter to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, urging him to detain both the Nancy and her cargo, “or such part of it as belongs to . . . Winslow, for the use of the colonies, rather than to suffer them to fall into the hands of General Gage, where they will be improved to the support of our enemies, and to augment the distress of these colonies” ( , 487–88). Connecticut authorities soon afterwards sent the Nancy to Norwich, Conn., and removed her cargo, sails, and rigging for storage (Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., to GW, 17 July 1775). See also Simon Pease to GW, 18 Sept. 1775.