I am honored by your Excellency’s favor of the 31st ulto accompanied by a letter to the Committee of Cooperation, which I took the liberty of opening; as those Gentlemen had been, some little time before, recalled by Congress—Our situation, in respect to Meat, is, if possible, worse now than it was when I addressed my circular letter of the 27th ulto.1 The Country in the neighbourhood is daily more and more exhausted, and our prospects of an immediate supply from a distance are far from being adequate to our wants. The whole Army will be this day without Meat, and some part of it has been several days on short allowance.

While I rejoice to hear that the Country abounds in supplies, I cannot but be alarmed at finding your Excellency express a fear that they will come on irregularly to the Army. I very much approve of the plan of establishing a correspondence between the superintending Commissaries of the New England States, for want of which we are, no doubt, subjected to many inconveniences.

I will not undertake to say how the account of supplies furnished by the State of Connecticut stands upon a general scale, but if I am not misinformed by the Commissary General, she is very considerably deficient upon the requisitions made by the Committee of Cooperation. He tells me he has received no Cattle from Colo. Champion for five weeks past.

The four or five hundred Barrels of salt Beef, which your Excellency mentions, will be a most valuable acquisition to the Magazine at West point, as we have been under the necessity of consuming the small quantity which I had wished to keep in reserve at that post, to secure it in case of a sudden investiture. You will therefore oblige me by forwarding it as expeditiously as possible to that place.2 I have the honor to be with the highest Respect and Esteem Dear Sir Your Excellency’s most obt and humble Servt