The General Assembly also appointed a committee of three to appraise and hire the two vessels. It ordered the larger vessel to be equipped with eighty men and ten 4-pounders; the smaller vessel was to be manned with not more than thirty men. It appointed Abraham Whipple commander of the larger vessel with the rank and power of commodore over both vessels, and named his lieutenants, master, and quarter-master. Officers were also chosen for the smaller vessel. The establishment of the little fleet was assimilated to that of the land forces of the state. Its cruises were to be determined by the Lieutenant-General, Brigadier-General, and the Committee of Safety.[634] Two sloops, the “Katy” and “Washington,” were at once chartered. Commodore Whipple tells us that on the same day he received his commission, June 15, he captured a tender of the frigate “Rose.”[635] This was the first authorized capture of a naval vessel of the enemy. During the summer of 1775 the “Katy” and “Washington” cruised chiefly in Narragansett Bay for the defence of Rhode Island. In August the “Washington” was sent outside of the Bay to warn incoming vessels laden with powder and warlike stores of their danger from British craft. It was at this time that Washington proposed that one of the sloops should be sent to the Bermudas for powder, which military necessity was much needed by his army.[636] Commodore Whipple, in the “Katy,” was dispatched on this errand in September. Arriving at the Bermudas, Whipple found that he had come too late as the powder had already been sent to Philadelphia. It was while the “Katy” was on this errand that Governor Cooke, on October 10, received orders from the Continental Congress to send his little fleet to the northward to intercept two British transports. The “Washington” was unfit for so large an undertaking. The “Katy,” having arrived from the Bermudas, was ordered on November 12, 1775, to cruise between Nantucket Shoals and Halifax. Later her destination was changed, and she was directed to carry to Philadelphia the seamen which Commodore Esek Hopkins had enlisted for the Continental service.[637] On the arrival of the “Katy” in Philadelphia she was taken into the Continental service under the name of the “Providence.” About the same time the “Washington” was in all probability returned to her owner, as she had become more or less unseaworthy.