16th [March, 1777]. Went on board the pilot boat last night about one o'clock and proceeded up the bay with a fair wind, we met with nothing remarkable till we got to Reedy Island where we found several ships, brigs, schooners and sloops waiting for a wind to go down the river; we passed New Castle about one o'clock, Wilmington about two, and got opposite Chester by sunset; we proceeded on and by 8 o'clock were at Gloucester Point; the wind was then contrary and it was ten o'clock before we arrived at the City of Philadelphia; here we landed and proceeded to a house in Front Street, where we understood Richard Bache, Robert Morris and a number of other gentlemen were at supper; I delivered my dispatches to Robert Morris and received from him an account of the fate of our ship, the news of the capture was very unexpected, and a very severe stroke to me, to complicate the sum of my misfortunes, on inquiring into the matter, I found that the Captain of our ship, having lost the Wasp in the night of the 10th and finding the weather on the 11th very foggy, undertook in direct contradiction to common sense, and the orders he had received from Captain [John] Baldwin, to proceed up the bay, saying in excuse for his folly he thought the weather was so thick that he could escape unseen by the men of war; they however kept a good lookout and saw him entering, as any person possessed with a single ounce of rationality would have expected, one of them went in pursuit of him but a shoal called the Overfall being between them he yet had a little chance of escaping by making for the Cape May shore, and running the ship aground; the Frigate however dispatched her tender, who continued the chase, Captain Rawlins [Thomas Rawlings] made for the land but unfortunately it being low water, the ship struck on a spit of sand about two musquet shots from the beach; the moment she struck the Captain and every hand on board were in the greatest confusion and deprived of the power of thinking; they however hoisted out the boats and jumped in them leaving the ship to be taken possession of by the Captors.

the French Engineer who from the various specimens he had given me on our passage, I thought sufficiently ignorant, took care of his trunks, and even his bed and bedding, but our Captain was so amazingly stupid and so totally deprived of the power of reflection, that he never even saved his quadrant, or a second shirt, tho he might with the greatest ease have taken every thing in the Cabin in his long boat as it was very large; had he pursued the positive instructions that were given him, he would have been safe in Egg Harbour, and the vessel and cargo which was of immense consequence to the Continent, been saved, but this fell a sacrifice to his ignorance. The ships crew proceeded on shore in the boat where a number of armed men had got ready to receive them, and to protect the vessel in case she had not struck till she got near the Beach; soon after they landed they saw the people from the tender board our ship, which soon floated as the tide rose, and they had the mortification to see her carried off by the captors.

The Captain and Chevalier Vrecour rode up to Philadelphia, where they arrived this day, with no other misfortune on the road except that of the Chevalier losing his sword, which he had quixotelike wore on horseback, and which was taken from him by encountering some bushes in the night; the Captain bore the expenses up to town as Monsieur had come to America without one farthing of money, expecting his consequence would soon procure him a supply.

After Robert Morris informed me of the loss of our vessel I was not in a situation to acquaint him with any European intelligence or inform him of a number of other matters which he wished to know, I therefore left Dr. Williamson with him and proceeded to my Uncle Pemberton's with a heavy heart.