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The British fleet was weatherbound in Nantasket Roads for ten days; but on the twenty-seventh day of March, when it finally went to sea, the entire American army, with the exception of the Boston garrison, was placed under orders to follow the advance division. General Sullivan marched the same day upon which he received orders; another division marched April 3d, and on the 4th General Spencer left with the last brigade, Washington leaving the same night.

In order to anticipate any possible delay of the troops in reaching their destination, he had already requested Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, to reënforce the New York garrison with two thousand men from Western Connecticut; and he also instructed the commanding officer in that city to apply to the Provincial Convention, or to the Committee of Safety of New Jersey, to furnish a thousand men for the same purpose. In advising Congress of this additional expense, incurred through his own forethought, but without authority of Congress, he wrote thus discreetly: “Past experience and the lines in Boston and on Boston Neck point out the propriety and suggest the necessity of keeping our enemies from gaining possession and making a lodgment.”