"If the French fleet should preserve its present station, a famine must, I think (and very soon) ensue in the enemy's army, as all their supplies must be cut off. Nothing but rice, instead of bread or flour, has been dealt out to the soldiery since their arrival in New-York. A loaf of bread that used to cost 4d. now sells in the city for a dollar. In short, it appears to me, not at all impossible, that if they should be thus kept hem'd in on the sea and land side, they will be reduced to the necessity of surrendering the city in less than a month, without any enterprize of General Washington against them.”