Sir

Your Letter of the 21 december & 17th January to the Marine Committee are with me and I have great pleasure in acknowledging on behalf of that Committee your Zeal and attention to the Public business. The tiding contained in those Letters was very Acceptable and I was particularly pleased with Captain [John Paul] Jone's's Success. By this Express I send him orders for an other Cruize, but by an expression in one of your Letters I imagine he or you have wrote to the Committee and proposed altering the Ship Alfred, that Letter must have passed through here without coming to my hands and the Committee have said nothing to me about it. Should they give any Orders that contradict mine let them be obeyed but if nothing contradictory, Captain Jones will abide by what I have wrote him. I have observed that you frequently did propose discharging those Vessels that were fitted out as Cruizers by General Washington and the Committee were always of your opinion but some how or other in the multiplicity of business and in their late confusion they omitted to give you orders Now Sir, as I know it was their desire to have those Vessels paid off and dismissed the service I will venture to authorize your doing it and shall send the Committee A Copy of this Letter which you may deem a proper authority: But as I have mentioned in another Letter your employing one of those Vessels to carry the dispatches to France, you must either keep that one in pay or buy her, which I should much prefer, and if any of the rest of them are good Vessels, suitable for Cruizers I should think it best to buy them and continue them in the service, especially as I suppose some of the Commanders and officers have merit to deserve a continuance in the service: but I am utterly against continuing them on hire and so I think are all the Committee. You may inform Mr [William] Tumbull that Altho the Congress wish by all means to procure the Public stores on the most reasonable terms possible, yet they cannot desire to injure One part of the Public service for the sake of another, and that the Honest Tars ought to have fair play in the sales of their Prizes. We don't wish to take any advantages of them but would chuse he would Gaurd against monopolizers, Forestallers and combinations of that Kind. If you can persuade Commodore Hopkins to give up his Guns you may, but I dont think the Committee will order it as there has already been some altercation on that subject.² On Behalf of the Marine Committee I am Sir [&c.]