Lively Nantasket Road 7th Augt 1775
Sir
I am to acknowledge the receipt of your Letter of Yesterday, with the Extract of a Letter from General [Thomas] Gage, enclose'd therewith; and agreeable to your request, I here send you the account of the Movement of the Rebel Whale Boats, the Morning they last attacked the Lighthouse,:
There boats where hal'd over the beach that join Nantasket to the Main, in the dawn of the Morning, so, that we saw nothing of them till they where near all over to the Lighthouse which they soon had possession of, and the House was on fire directly, almost as soon as I could make the Signal to Alarm the Ships above; I must here observe, that, at this time, there was but little wind, and that far Southerly, and which soon died away to near a Calm, so that had I cut or slipt; In the first place, the Lively could not have cleared Georges Island, and in the next (as it proved so Calm) She must have Anchored again. And I do declear it, as my opinion, that as the resistance, by the party at the Lighthouse, was, of so short duration, it was not possible for the Lively to have prevented the destruction of the House, the taking the party prisoners, or the Boats geting of[f]. I am Sir [&c.]