carry them on an additional force on the water is necessary. There are in James & Appomatox Rivers vessels of private property suited and sufficient for the purpose as is believed. I shall be glad to have the sanction of the General Assembly if they approve of it for impressing such vessels, their tackle &c. Crews for this particular purpose and for short time only, a measure which I hope would not be disagreeable to the owners if their vessels be insured with whatever they may have on Board and a reasonable pay allowed. An immediate determination would be necessary if the measure is approved. TO COLONEL EDWARD CARRINGTON. V. S. A. IN COUNCIL March 3d 1781. SIR, I have received your letter wherein is this paragraph "the sum indeed mentioned in your Excellency's letter is excessive and I am not surprised it should be so, when I find by a State of your affairs sent to General Greene you have magnifyed the estimate in one article ten fold and perhaps the same circumstance attends the estimation on some of the other articles. I estimated for fifty thousand Bushells of grain; in your Excellency's State to General Greene it is called five hundred thousand. I would be glad the Executive would revise their estimation and perhaps after correcting those errors &c. &c." I trust you would have been more choice in your terms had you revised the estimate yourself as recommended to us. I send you a copy of it wherein you will find the quantity of corn or oats expressed in these figures and letters 500,000 Bushels' in a former estimate given in some days or perhaps Weeks before this. The quantity required was 'for 2326 draft horses and 779 saddle horses till the 1st of August was 282,490 Bushels.' I did not therefore magnify the Article to General Greene and you are now speaking of 50,000 Bushels as the quantity required shows that I had reason to estimate to the General the necessity of a new calculation on the true number of horses connected with the Southern Army and the proportion of this, which on view of actual circumstances we ought to furnish. I believe the estimate of 50,000 bushels to be as far wrong as that of 500,000. We shall be governed by neither but will furnish as much as we shall be able. It will probably be short of the middle quantity. Should you have represented this article to General Greene to have been magnified by us, I shall expect from your Justice that you will be equally ready to correct as to commit an error & that you will take the trouble to inform him that I had not been so deficient in respect either to him or myself as to magnify things of which I undertook to give him representation. Major Claiborne had the half million of Pounds which we promised of the late emission. When the Treasury is replenished he shall again have due Proportion to enable him to procure such Part of the Estimate as he thinks proper. TO THE SPEAKERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF IN COUNCIL. March 3d 1781 GENTLEMEN,-I had the honor of receiving your joint letter of the 14th ult. I assure you that we have been so very far from entertaining an idea of witholding succours from you on account of the invasion of our State that it had been determined that the regular Troops raised & not at that time marched should nevertheless proceed to your assistance & that we would oppose the Aray in our own country with militia. For the same reasons we still mean that the new Levies now raising and which will be rendezvoused mostly within the present month, shall be marched on to your assistance, being convinced that that is the only permanent and effective aid we can give you. Militia do well for hasty enterprises, but cannot be relied on for lengthy service and out of their own County. I am truly sorry that it is out of my power to furnish you with a single stand of arms: those we sent the last year for the use of your State and in the hands of our own militia made a very considerable proportion of our whole stock. Three successive invasions since have obliged us so often to arm large bodies of militia and on every issue of arms to militia the loss is great. We are now unable to do more than to arm the Force lying at Portsmouth. The want of arms was the only circumstance which restrained the numbers lately collected against Ld Cornwallis. I shall be happy to give you every proof which shall be in our Power of the Cordiality & zeal with which to aid you under every Difficulty. Circumstanced Abilities unhappily render these aids much less than we are disposed to make them to which circumstance I beg you to ascribe whatever we fall short of your actual Wants. TO THE GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND. V. S. A. RICHMOND, March 6th, 1781. SIR, I had the honor of receiving your Excellency's Favour of February 27th and had just before received the resolutions of Congress of February 20th which were the subject of the Letter. I think that we ought not to expect any Co-operation in this business from North Carolina and that we should be disappointed were we to expect it. A State in which are several different Armies of Foes and of friends as destructive from necessity as Foes, which has been consumed by their ravages near a twelvemonth is not in a condition to give but to expect assistance. It must be evident that from the presence of our Armies in that state she must furnish more than her quota for supplies, because she makes up the failures of all other states; for on the Failures of supply the army will not go to take from the State failing, but takes its necessary subsistence from that in which you are. I think then that of the States named in the resolution of Congress the object of the resolution rest truly on Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia and I shall be very happy to concur with them in such equal measures as will effect the intentions of Congress. I do not apprehend it was intended by your Excellency when you proposed to deposit your quota of Specifics at Alexandria that the Burthen of transporting it thence to North Carolina should be left on us solely, because as on the same plan we should be entitled to deliver our quota on our Southern boundary which would bring up our share of burthen to an equality of yours: were we moreover to transport your quota and that of Delaware across our Country it would be so much more than equality. I take the liberty of mentioning this because your Excellency's proposition has been I think misunderstood in this particular. The desire of Congress that we should settle an arrangement for procuring supplies for the Southern Army in the states most convenient for replacing those supplies from other States and for transporting the whole. All this supposes a joint concern, I should think therefore it ought to be executed jointly, or if divided that the division of the whole, that is of the procuring supplies in one place replacing them by others and transporting both should be equal, by which I mean proportioned to our abilities as rated in the Continental scale. This may be done in several different ways 1st, by dividing among us the line of transportation into such parts as when combined with the quantity to be transported along each part will produce a total duly proportioned between us; 2d, by putting into the hands of a Quarter Master due Proportions of money or means of Transportation to be by him employed in carrying on our specifics from their respective States; 3d, For each State to appoint its own Agent & to procure the quota of specifics as near as they can to the Army replacing their money by sale of such specifics as might be raised within the State by Taxation. The first and second modes are liable to this objection |