On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, Massachusetts, General Washington wrote letters to the heads of government in New Hampshire (the New Hampshire Committee of Safety), Connecticut (Governor Jonathan Trumbull) and Rhode Island (Deputy Governor Nicholas Cooke) to inform them

that our Necessaties in the Articles of Powder, Lead & Flints are so great as to require an immediate Supply—I must earnestly intreat you will fall upon some Measures to forward to us every Ounce in the Province that can possibly be spared . . . No Quantity however small is beneath Notice & should any arrive I beg it may be forwarded to us as fast as possible.

Washington’s letter to Deputy Governor Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island added a daring proposal for a raid to seize gunpowder on Bermuda:

One Harris is lately come from Bermuda, where there is a very considerable Magazine of Powder in a remote Part of the Island, & the Inhabitants well disposed not only to our Cause in General, but to assist in this Enterprize in particular: We understand there are two armed Vessels in your Province commanded by Men of known Activity & Spirit: One of which it is proposed to dispatch on this Errand with such other Assistance as may be requisite: Harris is to go along as the Conductor of the Enterprize & to avail ourselves of his Knowledge of the Island but without any Command: I am very sensible that at first View this Project may appear hazardous, & its Success must depend upon the Concurrence of many Circumstances but we are in a Situation which requires us to run all Risques—No Danger is to be considered when put in Competition with the Magnitude of the Cause & the absolute Necessity we are under of increasing our Stock

Sources: “George Washington to Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., 4 August 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0155. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 1, 16 June 1775 – 15 September 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985, pp. 244–245.]; “George Washington to the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, 4 August 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0153. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 1, 16 June 1775 – 15 September 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985, p. 242.]; “George Washington to Nicholas Cooke, 4 August 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0149. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 1, 16 June 1775 – 15 September 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985, pp. 221–223.]; https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/narragansett-bay-operations-1775/