ow, with a
letter to General Nelson, and powers to call for the attendance of a
proper vessel.

I suppose that your drafts in favor of the quarter-master, if attended
with sixty days' grace, may be complied with to a certain amount. We
will certainly use our best endeavors to answer them. I have only to
desire that they may be made payable to the quarter-master alone, and
not to the bearer. This is to prevent the mortification of seeing an
unapprized individual taken in by an assignment of them, as if they
were ready money. Your letter to Colonel Finnie will go to Williamsburg
immediately. Those to Congress, with a copy of the papers enclosed to
me, went yesterday by express. I will take order as to the bacon you
mention. I fear there is little of it, and that not capable of being
long kept. You are surely not uninformed, that Congress required the
greater part of this article to be sent northward, which has been
done. I hope, by this time, you receive supplies of beeves from our
commissary, Mr. Eaton, who was sent three weeks or a month ago, to
exhaust of that article the counties below, and in the neighborhood of
Portsmouth; and from thence, was to proceed to other counties, in order,
as they stood exposed to an enemy.

The arrival of the French West India fleet (which, though not
authentically communicated, seems supported by so many concurring
accounts from individuals, as to leave scarcely room for doubt,) will,
I hope, prevent the enemy from carrying into effect the embarkation they
had certainly intended from New York, though they are strengthened by
the arrival of Admiral Rodney, at that place, with twelve sail of the
line and four frigates, as announced by General Washington to Congress,
on the 19th ultimo. The accounts of the additional French fleet are
varied from sixteen to nineteen ships of the line, besides frigates. The
number of the latter has never been mentioned. The extracts of
letters, which you will see in our paper of this day, are from General
Washington, President Huntington, and our Delegates in Congress to me.
That from Bladensburg is from a particular acquaintance of mine, whose
credit cannot be doubted. The distress we are experiencing from want
of leather to make shoes, is great. I am sure you have thought of
preventing it in future, by the appointment of a commissary of hides, or
some other good regulation for saving and tanning the hides, which the
consumption of your army will afford.