I have the pleasure to inform you since my last by the Jamaica packet, that six days after we arrived at New York from Dominica in the West Indies, to our great surprize we found lord Howe with 30 sail of men of war, and 24,000 troops, ready to sail upon an unknown expedition. We were ordered to get provisions on board that night, ready to sail next morning, which we did down to Sandy Hook.
July 26th. We all sailed from Sandy Hook, and after a long, tedious, disagreeable and uncomfortable passage, arrived in this river, the upper end of Chesapeake Bay, where the oldest men in this country never remembered to have seen any vessel, except small canoes. Consider what an astonishment it was to them to see a large fleet of 500 sail come up, which everybody thought in the fleet impracticable. This bay is one of the finest I ever saw, being 160 miles in length, and eight broad, navigable to the upper end.
August 27. We proceeded up the river to cover the landing of the troops, which they did without opposition to the number of 22,000 in one day. They had intelligence, that General Washington was about five miles off, but he thought proper to march off into the back country, there to make a stand. General Howe is gone in pursuit of him. We expect to hear in about a month's time of Philadelphia being taken. The army is very healthy and in great spirits. The people on the Maryland side, a great many are friends to government.
