On this day 250 years ago, from his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gen. George Washington wrote to Captain John Manley (an immigrant to America from England):

I received your agreeable Letter of the 26th instant giveing an account of your haveing taken & Carried into Plymouth two of the Enemys transports. Your Conduct in engageing the eight Gun Schooner, with So few hands as you went out with, your attention in Secureing Your prizes, & your general good behavior since you first engaged in the Service, merits mine & your Countrys thanks.

You may be assured that every attention will be paid to any reasonable request of yours, & that you shall have the Comand of a Stronger vessell of War, but as it will take up Some time before Such a one Can be fitted out . . . I wish you Coud inspire the Captains of the other Armed schooners under your Command with Some of your activity & Industry—Cannot You appoint Such Stations for them—where they may have the best Chance of intercepting Supplies Going to the enemy they dare not disobey your orders, as it is mentioned in the instructions I have given to each of them, that they are to be under your Comand, as Comodore

Three days earlier, Captain Manley and the Hancock had captured the British transport ships Happy Return and Norfolk after a spirited battle with an armed British schooner that outgunned the Hancock.

Sources: “George Washington to Captain John Manley, 28 January 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-03-02-0149. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 3, 1 January 1776 – 31 March 1776, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988, pp. 206–207.]; https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1926/august/captain-john-manley-continental-navy