loose for sea

More than three-score-and-ten boats were cast loose for sea, with at least 12,000 men on board of them.

There were seventy-eight ships and transports casting loose for sea, and eleven or twelve thousand men, soldiers, sailors, and refugees, hurrying to embark; many, especially of the latter, with their families and personal effects.

On the 17th there were in Boston Harbor seventy-eight ships and transports casting loose for sea, and twelve thousand soldiers, sailors and refugees, hurrying to embark.