George Washington Signed Passport for the Schooner "Friends Adventure" – 1775 Continental Navy Reference

Manuscript passport signed by George Washington as Commander in Chief, granting the schooner Friends Adventure safe passage from Newburyport, Massachusetts to Philadelphia under Master John Fulford. Addressed to officers of the armed vessels "fitted out at the Continental expence," it is among the earliest surviving references to the developing Continental Navy.

Full transcript: "To all Officers & others Comanding or belonging to the armed Vessels fitted out at the Continental expence. Let pass without interruption, from the Port of Newbury to Philadelphia, the Schooner Freinds Adventure, Whereof is Master John Fulford, being a freind to American Liberty. Cambridge, 18th November 1775. G[o] Washington. by His Excellencys Comand / Stephen Moylan / P.T.S."

Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 3, 1775, and set up headquarters at Cambridge. With Boston Harbor closed to shipping, merchants routed vessels through nearby ports; Newburyport, 35 miles north, became the army's main supply depot during the siege of Boston, which lasted until March 1776. Congress had authorized the Continental Navy just five weeks earlier, and privateering only three days before this document was signed. By war's end, American ships had taken roughly 1,500 British vessels and more than 12,000 prisoners.

GEORGE WASHINGTON. Manuscript Document Signed, Passport for the Friends Adventure, November 18, 1775, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Inventory #28407.