The committee is charged with “the sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world.”

Five members are elected to the committee of secret correspondence: Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Johnson of Maryland, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania and John Jay of New York.

“I have all ranks of officers at dinner, give them good wine, laugh at the Yankees and turn them into ridicule when the opportunity offers.”

The Nancy is traveling alongside a second transport, laden with gunpowder for the redcoats, but before the Lee can capture her too, a pair of Royal Navy men-of-war appear, forcing her to retreat. www.californiasar.org/2023/11/uss-...

She signals for a pilot, and the other ship sends a boat over to them. But when the men on the boat come aboard, they pull out a cache of hidden weapons and reveal that the ship is, in fact, the Continental Army schooner Lee. The Nancy’s crew must surrender without a fight.

The assembly also echoes that of Pennsylvania by sending instructions to its Continental Congress delegation not to support any measures that would lead towards independence or “change the Form of Government” in the colonies. Main source: Sheila L. Skemp, WILLIAM FRANKLIN

It’s Royal Governor William Franklin’s greatest victory yet. New Jersey isn’t rejecting the Patriot cause in any way, but what it IS doing is breaking colonial unanimity, by conducting its own relations with the imperial government rather than speaking through the Continental Congress.

“—these being under no kind of Government themselves, will destroy the little subordination I have been labouring to establish, and run me into one evil, whilst I am endeavouring to avoid another.”

“In short, after the last of this Month, our lines will be so weakend that the Minute Men and Militia must be call’d in for their defence—

“The Connecticut Troops will not be prevail’d upon to stay longer than their term … and such a dirty, mercenary Spirit pervades the whole, that I should not be at all surprizd at any disaster that may happen—

“Such a dearth of Publick Spirit, & want of Virtue; such stock jobbing, and fertility in all the low Arts to obtain advantages, of one kind or another, in this great change of Military arrangemt I never saw before, and pray God I may never be Witness to again. …

“No Troops were ever better provided or higher paid, yet their Backwardness to inlist for another Year is amazing: It grieves me to see so little of that patriotick Spirit, which I was taught to believe was Characteristick of this people.”

Nicholas will command the marines aboard the Continental Navy flagship Alfred until he is “advanced to major of marines” in June 1776, by which he is traditionally considered the first Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Nicholas thus becomes responsible for raising the marines he will command himself, which he does from December 6 to January 14, 1776, according to tradition recruiting out of the Tun Tavern at the corner of King (Water) Street and Tun Alley.

Congress’s original plan of November 10 to find two battalions of marines and their officers from among the army besieging Boston infuriated Washington for the disruption it would wreak after the army’s careful reorganization. founders.archives.gov/documents/Wa...

I found it in The Howe Dynasty by Flavell, but yeah, the citation goes back to the Germain papers.

“Doct.r Church is in close Custody in Norwich Gaol, the windows boarded up, and he deny’d the use of Pen, Ink, and Paper, to have no converse with any Person but in presence of the Gaoler, and then to Converse in no Language but English. Good God what a fall.”