From George Washington to Commodore Esek Hopkins, 25 April 1776
To Commodore Esek Hopkins
New York 25th April 1776
Sir
I wrote you the 14th instant giving Information of the sailing from this harbour of the Phenix Savage & Nautilus Men of war which I Apprehended were Design’d to Join Wallace in Order to Block up the fleet under your Command the latter part I since find to be groundless as they have returned & I find that they make a practice of Streetching off from & soon returning to this port—This Convinces me that they are in expectation of a Fleet & I am preparing for their Reception—I expected to have met here a force much Superior to what I have found it I was Obblig’d to Lessen it by Detaching four of our Strongest Battalions to Canada which lays me Under the Necessity of Requesting you to Dispatch to this place as soon as possible the 200 men lent you from this Army that they may join their Respective Corps which are much weakene’d by their Absence.1 I am sir, Your most Obbt & Humbe Servt
G.W.
P.S. Inclosed is a Copy of 2 Resolves of Congress respectg the Cannon & Stores &c.2
LB, in Caleb Gibbs’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. For Hopkins’s reluctance to return these men to the army, see his letters to GW of 1, 12, and 22 May.
2. GW enclosed the Continental Congress’s resolutions of 16 and 19 April concerning employment of the cannon and military stores that Hopkins had captured at New Providence. For a discussion of these resolutions, see Hancock to GW, 20 April 1776 (first letter), n.1.