To George Washington from Commodore Esek Hopkins, 2 September 1776
From Commodore Esek Hopkins
Providence Septr 2nd 1776
Sir
I am Order’d by the Marine Committee to get the Valuation of the Stores that I brought from New Providence,1 and as part of them was sent to Newyork by your Order should be glad you would Order Mr Knox, or some other of your Officers to put a Value on them, and order them to transmit such Valuation to me as soon as Convenient.
Sir Should be extremely oblig’d to you if you have Settled a Cartell with Admiral or General Howe, if you would endeavour to get one Mr Henry Hawkings who was taken out of the Sloop L’Aaimable Marie Peter Douville Master the 20th May last, off Shrewsberry Inlet near Sandy Hook, and I believe is now on board the Phœnix, and I hear acts as a common hand—he is young man and a near kinsman of mine, and his Father and Mother are very A[n]xious to get him Exchang’d.2
I can send a Prisoner of almost any Rank that may [be] required for him.
Your assistance in this matter will very much oblige Sir Your most humbl. Servt
E.H.
LB, RHi: Hopkins Papers.
1. For the cannon that Hopkins captured at New Providence, see GW to Hopkins, 14, 25 April, Hancock’s first letter to GW, 20 April, and Hopkins to GW, 22 May 1776.
2. The L’Amiable Marie, commanded by Pierre Douville (Du Ville; 1745–1794), was returning to Providence from France with a cargo of gunpowder when it was captured by a British cruiser (see Nicholas Brown & Co. to Plombard and Legris & Co., 6 June 1776, in , 5:396–97). The Providence Gazette; and Country Journal for 31 May 1777 says that Hawkins was killed while on board the Phoenix “in her Passage up the North River last Summer, by a Shot from one of our Batteries.” In March 1777, however, Lord Howe ordered the captain of the Phoenix to free Hawkins and permit him to return to Providence (see Peter Parker to Nicholas Cooke, 14 Mar. 1777, in , 8:107–8). Henry Hawkins may be the privateer captain of that name who sailed out of Philadelphia between 1779 and 1782.