[Extract]

I received a Card from our Friend Doctr [Benjamin] Franklin, assuring me a friendly Visit before he returns to Philadelphia ー If he can spare Time to take a View of the Harbor I hope to convince him of the Practicability of stoping up the Narrows, and forcing our Enemies to ask our Leave to return home. If you can procure, & send me a Model, or at least a perfect Draft of the Machine you mention for obstructing the Passage of Vessels up the River Delaware, with explicit Directions how to sink & secure them from being weighed or destroyed by the Enemies Ships, it would greatly facilitate the same valuable Purposes here, not only in the Narrows, but also in the Lighthouse Channel, which in the narrowest Part, is not much if anything above half a Mile wide: ー Could the Depth of Water be reduced there, so as to prevent Line of battle Ships from entering this Harbor, we might, for the future, bid Defiance to our Enemies. But, you shall hear more from me, after I have conversed fully with Doctr Franklin upon the Subject, which is, to me, of much more Importance, than I had any Conception of 'till I read what you have wrote upon it; and especially, since the cannonading our maritime Towns, and the Destruction of Falmouth demonstrates, the malicious Purpose of our Enemies to execute, their unrelenting Vengeance by every Means in their Power.