[Boston] 8th [October, 1775]
However, maugre all impediments, the small Armament [under Lieutenant Henry Mowat] sailed on its operations from Boston on. the 8th of October . . .
The same day a Transport having Troops on board for Halifax proceeded under convoy of the Fowey for that place. And a Lieutenant who commanded a Transport, which arrived Yesterday, reporting that he had been chased in the Bay by a Rebel Schooner, which from her appearance he guessed. to be his Majesty's late Schooner Diligent, that the Rebels had taken some time ago at Mechias,2 the Admiral thereupon ordered the Nautilus, as being by much the best going Vessel of any then at Boston and none other being so ready and in all respects so proper for this sudden Service, to put to Sea immediately in quest of the Rebels but to return in eight days to Nantasket, for according to her former destination she was to have sailed in two or three days for the River Delaware, of which the Admiral was never unmindful and where there was a necessity for a Ship of War.
1. Graves's Conduct, I, 141-143, BM.
2. The pursuer of the transport was not the "Diligent" [Diligence], which never came that far west, but Washintgon's armed schooner Hannah, commanded by Captain Nicholson Broughton.
