You are hereby required & directed to repair with His Majts Armed Vessel under your command into Portsmouth Harbour where we have ordered her to be cleaned graved & refitted, Stored for Foreign Service & her provisions completed to Six Months of all Species except Beer of which she is to take as much as she can conveniently stow; And to be supplied with Wine or Brandy in lieu of the remainder Applying to Vice Adml Sr James Douglas for the security of her Men And repairing when ready to Spithead & remain there until you receive further Orders. 2
Given &c 5th March 1776
J Buller Lisburne H Penton
By &c PS
1. PRO, Admiralty 2/ 100, 461.
2. " ... he cruised in Boston Bay to January 1776, when the Ship was found unfit to continue any longer on that Service, And in Consequence thereof was put under orders to proceed to England, carrying Dispatches & Letters from the Commanders in chief representing Captain Mowat's Services and Usefulness on that Coast, And at the same time a request from them, that he might therefore be returned to America without loss of time in a Ship fit to do Justice to his Experience of the Station. On his arrival he was received with the most gracious approbation of His Majesty, of the Admiralty Board & of the Secretary of State, & had the Step of Master & Commander Conferred on him, but it was to a Ship then at Boston." "Captain Henry Mowat's Service," Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society, 2nd series, II, 357-58.
