The Congress has resolved upon building two ships-of-war of 36 guns each.... You, Sir, have been recommended as a person of great fitness for this business.... I do, in the name of the committee, request you will ... determine a most fit place to put these ships upon the stocks at. Safety against the enemy is a very necessary object, proper water for launching, and convenience for getting timber you will consider.... A master builder with four or six workmen will soon go hence to Virginia for this business, and I have no doubt other workmen will be had in that State to carry on the work briskly.... The builder desires that trees be felled immediately whilst the sap is down, that a quantity of locust trunnels be split one and one-half inches and from 18 to 30 inches in length; that sawyers be employed to get out white oak plank of 3-1/2 inches. These things and whatever else may be immediately necessary for this business you will take care to have done.... The builder tells me that cedar, locust, pitch pine, or wild cherry will be the proper timber for the upper works. On Wednesday, December 18, 1776, it was resolved by the General Assembly that the Governor be desired to write to the Maryland Council of Safety to inform them that four galleys of eighty odd feet keel, intended for the protection of Chesapeake Bay and adjacent capes and coasts, were then building in Virginia and in great forwardness, and that the General Assembly have directed four more galleys, much larger, be immediately built and equipped for the same purpose. The hope was expressed that the sister state, equally interested in mutual defence, would supply a proper quota of galleys to act in concert with those of Virginia. Chesapeake Bay was the chief theatre of action by the enemy because of the principal tories residing near its waters. To watch their movements and prevent intercourse with the enemy became the duty of these galleys. Two galleys, the _Accomack_ and _Diligence_, were built in 1777 on Muddy Creek near Guilford in Accomack County, and stationed on the Eastern Shore. These large galleys were about 90 feet in length and each carried two 18-pounders, four 9-pounders, and several swivels, in all ten guns. The State built and operated in 1777, a ropewalk at Warwick in Chesterfield County about five miles below Richmond, where ducking, sail-cloth, and rope were manufactured under the charge of Captain Charles Thomas. Several important warehouses had been established there. The place was totally destroyed in the British raid of April, 1781.