[Providence, Thursday, December 8, 1774]
It is voted and resolved, that all the cannon now at Fort George2 (excepting two eighteen-pounders and one six pounder) and all the powder, shot and stores, thereto belonging (excepting so much powder and ball as are sufficient for the cannon to be left at said fort) be immediately removed to the town of Providence; that Col. Joseph Nightingale,3 be, and he is hereby, appointed to see the same done.
That the commanding officer of the said fort be, and he is hereby, ordered to deliver the same to the said Joseph Nightingale; who is hereby directed to keep the cannon, ball, &c. in his possession, until further orders from this Assembly.
It is voted and resolved, that the copies of the letter from the Earl of Dartmouth, to this colony, and of the order therein enclosed, now lying before this Assembly, be immediately sent to the Speaker of the lower House, to Thomas Cushing, Esq., the late speaker of the House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, to be communicated to the provincial congress, in that colony.
1. John Russell Bartlett, ed., Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation in New England, 1770 to 1776 (Providence, 1862), VII, 262, 263. Hereafter cited as Bartlett, ed., Records of Rhode Island.
2. Located on Fort Island in Newport Harbor.
3. A Colonel of Rhode Island militia, and partner in the Providence mercantile house of Clark & Nightingale.
