Captain Wynkoop Undertakes Service on the Lakes Under Certain Conditions.
Captain Wynkoop Undertakes
Service on the Lakes
Under Certain Conditions.

1463     NEW-YORK COMMITTEE OF SAFETY, APRIL, 1776     1464

    A draft of a Letter to Major-General Schuyler, to be delivered by Captain Wynkoop, was read and approved, and is in the words following, to wit:

                In Committee of Safety, New-York, April 25, 1776.
    SIR: Your letter of the 8th ultimo, requesting seamen for the service on the lakes, came to hand on the 16th. The Provincial Congress on that day sent Captain Wynkoop to Major Douglass, on that subject. His answer was not satisfactory. The Committee of Safety wrote to him. His letter in answer was in our opinion indeterminate. Captain Wynkoop was ready for the service, but refused to serve under Major Douglass. The Committee of Safety immediately recommended Captain Wynkoop to Congress for the command, enclosing copies of all the letters on that subject, and requesting they would give immediate directions, which we have not yet received. On the 13th instant, on sight of your letter to the General, we found that Major Douglass was gone to Connecticut. We then prevailed on Captain Wynkoop to undertake that service, on condition to have leave to resign and leave that department if any person should arrive there to take command of the vessels as his superior. Nothing but the pressing necessity of the case, an attachment to the service, the cause of his country, and to you, sir, as his General, would have prevailed on Captain Wynkoop to inlist the men, and proceed to put the vessels in order, under the present uncertainty of his station. Should the appointment of a superior oblige him to quit that department, we hope, sir, it will not be considered to his disadvantage.
    It was not in our power to send you seamen without an officer. We assure you, sir, that we have done everything in our power in this matter; and had it not been for the difficulties which arose from the appointment of Major Douglass, you would have had the seamen in due season, and in the month of March.
    We are, with the highest respect and esteem, sir, your very humble servants.
    To Major-General Schuyler.
    Ordered, that a copy thereof be engrossed, and signed by the Chairman, and transmitted.


Source:

Force, Peter, American Archives: Consisting of a collection of authentick records, state papers, debates, and letters and other notices of publick affairs, the whole forming a documentary history of the origin and progress of the North American colonies; of the causes and accomplishment of the American revolution; and of the Constitution of government for the United States, to the final ratification thereof., 4th Series, M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1837-46, Volume 5, p. 1464

Created September 30, 2003; Revised September 30, 2003
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