Sir,

I enclose you a Copy of a Report made me by the Master of the Schooner on Lake Champlain, confirming the Account that Vessels of Force are building at St Johns.

The Accounts of the Persons employed in taking and garrisoning Crown Point & this Place are involved in such a Cloud of Confusion, that I shall find it very difficult to execute your Orders on this Head with Precision. The Colony of Connecticut has paid some Part of the Money; so has the Massachusetts, and a small Sum has been advanced by me. It will be necessary therefore that Congress should order the Accounts from those Colonies to be transmitted to me, (together with the Return of the Men as made to them) specifying who the People were that have received Money, in which Case I can take the Receipts in full, charge the whole Amount in my Accounts, & give Credit for what has been advanced by others. By the Return I have already recd I find that the same Men are charged in two or three different Accounts; so that none can be paid until the whole are returned, however necessitous they may be, and many of them are most truly so.

Two Days after my Arrival here I gave such Orders respecting the issuing of Provisions that I hoped an effectual stop would have been put to any future Misapplication, in which I have been disappointed. In mentioning this I do not mean to impeach the Integrity of the Men employed. I believe them honest and well meaning: but however willing they were to obey, they were so ignorant of Forms, that it was not easy for them to get into a proper Train, and therefore I ordered the Deputy Commissary General to send up a Person (whom I named and knew to be equal to the Task) to give them such explicit Directions and Forms, as that they will not hereafter labour any Difficulties to discharge their Duty with Propriety & Regularity, and Mr John N. Bleeker is now employed for that essential Service.

Out of about five Hundred Men that are here, near one hundred are sick, and I have not any Kind of Hospital Stores, altho I had not forgot to order them immediately after my Appointment. The little Wine I had for my own Table, I have delivered to the Regimental Surgeon. That being expended I can no longer bear the Distress of the sick, and impelled by the Feelings of Humanity, I shall take the Liberty immediately to order a Physician from Albany (if one can be got there, as I believe there may) to join me with such Stores as are indispensably necessary. If Congress should approve of this Measure they will please to signify what Allowance of Pay will be made ー If not I shall discharge the Person whoever he be, paying him for the Services he may have performed.

Lieutenant Col [Samuel] Mott is still here. I am at best but a very indifferent Judge of the engineering Business; but from [what] I can discover he appears to me as well qualified as any Gentleman that can be got, who is not regularly bred to the Business. I am sure he is active and has the Service much at Heart, and I could wish if his Appointment is to be confirmed, that his Commission might be transmitted me.

It is more than probable that before I can receive your Answer to this Letter, I shall have a Sufficiency of Boats to transport what Troops I am likely to have to St Johns if I should be ordered there (for, after deducting what will be absolutely necessary to garrison these Places, and bring a Supply of Provisions, I shall, at most, have only twelve Hundred Men) In that Case I wish to be informed what I am to do with the Carpenters that are here; for altho I think it necessary to build more Boats, yet I ought to know whether Congress means that I should build a naval Force superior to that of the Enemy. If so, I must keep them, and beg some more good Builders. The Boats I have found on the Lake are so bad, that the Labour we have bestowed upon them is in a great Measure lost.

As the Commander of the Sloop has left her, of which I was advised on my Anival at Albany, I wrote to the New York Provincial Congress to send me up a Man, which they have accordingly done, and I am just now informed that Congress has appointed another.² If so, I beg the Directions of Congress, how I am to dispose of Capt [James] Smith the present Commander.

I am Sir [&c.]

[Endorsed]    Read in Congress Sepr 14th 1775.