In Marine Committee 15th January 1777
Ordered that Messrs. Purveyance & Stewart the Continental Marine Agents in the State of Maryland be directed to proceed immediately to provide Timber for building the two thirty six gun Frigates ordered to be built in the said State, and to proceed in other respects to provide materials for the completion of said Frigates.1
John Hancock
Richard Henry Lee
Wm. Whipple
Receiver's copy, New York Public Library. Drafted by Lee with postscript by Hancock. Addressed by Hancock to Purviance at Baltimore.
Printed in James Curtis Ballagh, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, Volume 1, 1762 - 1778, pp. 249 - 50.
1 Congress had authorized construction of these frigates on November 20, 1776. JCC, 6:970.