This partly printed and partly Autograph Document Signed in the text, Boston, August 22, 1763, records the Hancock merchant house’s services to the British Government just a few years before the Stamp Act. “Shipped by the Grace of God, in good order and well conditioned by Thomas Hancock by order of Captain Bruce, at Annapolis Royal [in Nova Scotia], in and upon the good sloop called the Charming Molly, where of is master under God for the present voyage, George Mitchell, and now riding at anchor in the harbor of Boston, and by God’s grace bound for Annapolis Royal, to say One bag containing Three hundred dollars, one hundred & ten joannes, six crowns, one half pistareens & eight copper half pence on authority and risk of the Honorable Board of Ordnance....to be delivered in the like good order and well conditioned at the aforesaid Annapolis Royal...unto Thomas Williams, Esq., storekeeper & paymaster to the Honorable Board of Ordnance...and so God send the good sloop to her desired Port of Safety, Amen.” Captain Mitchell has signed the document at the end.
Williams would have used the funds delivered by Hancock either to pay troops under his command or to buy new munitions.