Sir,

I have been favored with your Letter of the 14^th ult^o., by Captain Collins¹ of the Nautilus, who arrived here with the Dispatches on the 26^th. of last Month. He now has my Orders to return to New York, and is charged with Convoying two Ordnance Transports and several other Vessels bound thither.

The accident that has happened to the Liverpool is most severly felt here;² it has so much weakened this Squadron, that the remaining Ships are but barely sufficient to preserve an open Communication with the Sea, and execute the necessary Attendance unavoidable to the particular Situation of the Army. It is therefore that I am obliged to request that you will please to send back the Nautilus or some Frigate with the Baggage and Hay Ships which Sir William Howe expects are prepared at New York for this place, it not being in my power at present to send a Ship from hence on that Service.

I do not write to the Admiral by this Conveyance, as I expect his Lordship will have left Rhode Island before the Letter would reach that place.

The Delaware which for some days before the Arrival of the Nautilus had been quite clear of Ice, has by the last Frost been again so much filled with it, that the Fleet of Army Victuallers and other Ships going down the River, are still detained at the Wharfs on that account. I am with all possible respect