[Extract]

. . . As to news we have none. A few pri_zes, some of them valuable, have been sent in. Your Navy here still remains in port. When any of them go to Sea I can't say. The conduct of this part of your operations will be a subject of curious enquiry. I hear we are going to have another frigate and a 74-gun ship built here. Will the conduct of this matter be put into hands of persons who scarcely know the difference between a ship and a wheelbarrow, and who seem to have no ideas of the importance of dispatch, or know not how to make it? . . .