A little later on the same day this committee reported; and thereupon Congress decided to write a letter to Washington directing him to obtain from the Council of Massachusetts two of that state’s cruisers, and to despatch them on the errand of intercepting the two supply ships. It also directed that letters be written to the governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island asking for the loan of some of their armed vessels, which were to be sent on the same mission. “The committee appointed to prepare a plan for intercepting the two vessels bound to Canada” made another report on the 6th, which was ordered to lie on the table “for the perusal of the members.”[7] This report was acted upon on October 13, when Congress decided to fit out two armed vessels, one of ten and the other of fourteen guns, to cruise three months to the eastward for the purpose of intercepting the enemy’s transports laden with warlike stores and other supplies. A committee consisting of Silas Deane, John Langdon, and Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina was appointed to estimate the expense which would be incurred in fitting out the two vessels.[8] In four days this new committee reported an estimate, which was unsatisfactory and was recommitted.[9] When it again reported on October 30, two more vessels, one to mount not more than twenty and the other not more than thirty-six guns, were ordered to be prepared for sea, and “to be employed in such manner, for the protection and defence of the United Colonies, as the Congress shall direct.” It should be noted that the two vessels for which provision was now made were to engage in the defence of the colonies, and not merely in the interception of transports, an indication of an advance in the naval policy of Congress. Four additional members were now added to the committee, Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, Joseph Hewes of North Carolina, R. H. Lee of Virginia, and John Adams of Massachusetts.[10] This reconstituted committee composed of seven members was sometimes called “the committee for fitting out armed vessels,” occasionally the “Marine Committee,” but most frequently the “Naval Committee.” It secured for its use a room in a public house in Philadelphia, and in order that there should be no conflict between its meetings and those of Congress, it fixed its hours from six in the evening until the close of its business. Its sessions were sometimes pleasantly continued, even until midnight, by conversational diversions, marked by a rich flow of soul, history, poetry, wine, and Jamaica rum.