Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
I am to acknowledge the Receipt of your Letter of the 22d of October last with the inclosed Resolve of Congress, and to inform you that before it came to Hand myself with the other Owners of the Privateer who took the Ship bound to Quebec being desirous that the Continent might 328have all the Goods in her which were necessary for the Army wrote to General Washington acquainting him with the Capture of the Ship and her Lading.1 In Consequence of which Brigadier General Mifflin2 appointed a Gentleman in this Town to purchase the abovementioned Goods who hath accordingly bought the Blankets being near Three Thousand, Three large Hogsheads of stout Shoes being the whole of that Article, and Three or Four Hogsheads of Camp-Kettles, and is now in Treaty for a large Quantity of coarse Cloths, Linens and Stockings for the same Purpose.
I am, Sir Your most humble Servant
On Sept. 21 the Rhode Island privateer Hawke captured the British ship Thomas, bound from London to Quebec. On Oct. 23, Congress resolved for Cooke to purchase all the blankets and coarse cloth “at continental expence, for the use of the army under General Washington’s command.” For Cooke’s letter to Washington, dated Oct. 19, informing him of the capture of the prize ship, see The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series, 6:590–591.
Thomas Mifflin (1744–1800), Philadelphia merchant, served in the First Continental Congress. General Washington appointed Mifflin as his aide-de-camp and later as quartermaster general of the Continental Army. He resigned from military service in 1778 and later returned to the Continental Congress (1782–1784), serving as it president from December 1783 to June 1784. Mifflin also served as governor of Pennsylvania, 1790–1799 (
DAB
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