Philadelphia August 11th 1778.
Sir
M Brown having communicated to us the desire of the marine Committee “to have laid before them a written account how far we have executed their orders respecting the french fleet.[”]1 Agreable thereto we now inform you that the whole of the two first orders issued by the Committee were complied with and Shipped on board the fleet at Sandy hook and the frigate in the Delaware,2 and we now have ready for exporting, two thousand Barrels of biscuit, containing about one hundred weight averdupoises, one thousand Barrels of pork lately examined, repacked and in good order containing upwards of two hundred weight averdupoises which will compleat the order for pork, hogs heads and feet they being packed together. The rice also is ready for exporting at Eggharbour.3
The Commissary general4 has been furnished with a copy of the order of the marine Committee, and we doubt not he will adopt measures for the Speedy execution of their order in conjunction with us. The articles of pease, beans, mustard Seed, Beef, vinegar and cheese, we despair of procuring any large quantity of untill the fall. We are now baking in this city upwards of 800. barrels bread pr. week; and we expect with the assistance of the bake houses employed in Wilmington to Supply the whole of that article Shortly. We have the honr &c.
Chaloner et White
Copy, FrPNA, Marine B4, vol. 143, fol. 139. The recipient is not given, but the letter was in a collection of Gérard’s papers and the contents indicate it was sent to the French ambassador.
1. See John Brown to John Chaloner, 10 Aug., above.
2. Vice-amiral comte d’Estaing’s fleet was no longer at Sandy Hook, but had sailed to Rhode Island. The “frigate in the Delaware” was the French Navy frigate Chimère, Capitaine de vaisseau Antoine de Cresp de Saint-Cézaire.
3. That is, Egg Harbor, New Jersey.
4. Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth was the Commissary General. As seen in a letter on 13 Aug. from him, below, and one from the Marine Committee to him of 14 Sept., he had had orders to obtain flour for the French fleet. Continental Marine Committee to Jeremiah Wadsworth, 14 Sept. 1778, in Out-Letters of the Continental Marine Committee and Board of Admiralty, August, 1776—September 1780, vol. II, ed. Charles Oscar Paullin (New York: Naval History Society, 1914), pp. 3–4.
