Philadelphia, February 16.
The following is a list of the privateers fitted out here by order of the Congress last January, with the commanders names and their force. They sailed about the middle of February Jast on an expedition which is kept a profound secret, viz.
The Congress have ordered 13 frigates to be built with all expedition, of 36 guns each, at Maryland, Philadelphia, and Rhode-Island, four of which were on the stocks at Philadelphia when Captain Meston sailed. Likewise one floating battery of 105 feet in keel, which is to mount 18 eighteen-pounders, row fifty oars, and carry 300 men. Also 30 fire rafts. ー They have sunk 50 cheveaux-du-frize in the river to prevent the English ships from going up; and built a strong fort at the mouth of it.
1. Almon, ed., Remembrancer [1776], II, Part I, 364.
2. Dudley Saltonstall.
3. Henry Dougherty was senior captain, but not commander in chief.
4. The galley was named the Hancock. The Hancock and Adams was a merchant ship.
5. The snow Dickinson, William Meston, master, sailed from Philadelphia in January 1776, for Nantes, with a cargo of flour, staves, beeswax and spermaceti candles, proceeds of which were to be laid out in gunpowder and arms to the account of the Continental Congress. Learning of the purpose, the mate and crew seized the snow and carried her into Bristol, England, on April 8, 1776.
