[Extract]

Sir: I take this opportunity to acquaint your Honour of the situation of the troops under my immediate command. One Company of my Regiment, you are sensible, is ordered to Ticonderoga; five more are stationed betwixt NewHaven and this Town, and four are in this place. Colonel [David] Waterbury's Regiment are all in this Town and Stamford. The safety of the Country may possibly require my marching to New-York before I can have your orders. would, therefore, beg of your Honour to direct me to march my Troops to Newy ork upon application made to me for that purpose by their Provincial Congress. Your Honour will perhaps think it expedient, when you read a letter which I have just received from Mr. [Isaac] Sears . . .²

I would also acquaint your Honour that all the military stores which were at Turtle Bay have fallen into our hands, consisting of too many articles to be enumerated in a letter, among which there are about five hundred good horse harnesses, a very considerable number of thirteen and ten-inch carcasses, cohorns, and stink pots, all well charged; a very great plenty of grape-shot; cannon ball, from twenty-four pounders down to three, &c., &c.; a part of which articles I shall keep with me, but the greater part I shall send to New-Haven.

Your Honour cannot be unacquainted that provisions, stores, &c., can be forwarded along the Sound by water with much greater dispatch and vastly less cost to the Colony than by land; however, at present it is difficult, on account of the tenders and cutters which are perpetually about. We have at New Haven a number of cannon; I have with me all other kinds of military stores, except powder, requisite for a guardcosta; Mr. [Peter] Colt, of New-Haven, has a fine vessel very proper for the business. We have in the Army a very sufficient number of men well acquainted with the seas, and good resolute fellows, and it is my opinion, that the additional cost to the Colony will be nothing more than the hire of the vessel and the powder; that about a hundred of the men under my command cannot be employed in any way so much to the advantage of the Country. I am Sir [&c.]