My Lord — I am to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's private letter of the 7th of August, and have the happiness at the same time of congratulating you upon the very great and successful outset of your campaign, from which in this part of the world we all form to ourselves the most pleasing ideas of what is to follow.

You may be assured that everything within my department that you can suggest as likely to give additional force to your measures shall be supplied, with as little delay as possible. You mention your wish to have 15 two-deck ships; but i apprehend you do not think so many will be wanted in the winter, and by the spring I hope we shall be able to give you the number you mention, though as things are circumstanced in Europe (with great preparations going on both in the French and Spanish ports, where they are putting a very large number of capital ships into readiness to receive men) it is much to be wished that all our line of battle ships should be kept at home; and I imagine I am right in supposing that 4th-rates and 40-gun ships will answer your purpose as well, if not better than two-deck ships of a higher class. Of these there are only two now in any forwardness, namely the Warwick [50] and Panther [60]; therefore, if you adhere to your opinion that 15 are necessary, I see no way of supplying that demand but by sending one or two 3rd rates, to which I am sure you will see the objection in as strong a light as I do. However, at all events you may depend that the important service on which you are employed shall not be cramped, let what will be the consequence.

There are two new bomb vessels lately launched. Does your Lordship advise their being sent out to you in the spring?

Twelve frigates are now on their way to join you, most of which I hope are with you before this time; these, with what you had under you when you wrote last, and those that I conclude will come to you from the River St Lawrence before the winter sets in, will I hope enable you to make such a disposition as will render it difficult for the rebel cruisers to do so much mischief as they have hitherto done. But, while almost the whole American fleet is necessarily taken up in attending the operations of the army, other services must of course in some degree give way to the principal object.

The necessity of sending the ordnance stores in ships of force, which your Lordship mentions with so much propriety, has been fully attended to; and I understand that all the ships that have lately been taken up by the Board of Ordnance are either old Indiamen or other large ships that will be armed with upwards of twenty guns, and manned with a proportionate number of seamen besides parties of recruits, which will make them stronger than any rebel cruiser I yet have heard of. This in my opinion is the most judicious and indeed the only method of conveying these valuable cargoes with safety; for I can by no means concur in opinion with the Board of Ordnance that their stores might be carried in men of war, as your Lordship well knows that, when a ship is fitted for a for'eign voyage, her own stores leave no room for anything that does not belong to herself; indeed there are so many objections to this measure that I am persuaded will occur to your Lordship as well as to me that it would be taking up your time unnecessarily, was I to enter further into the subject.

I find by your Lordship's letter and by one from Lord Shuldham that he is coming home in the Bristol: every part of your behaviour with regard to his return is exactly conformable to what I took the liberty to suggest to you in a former letter, and requires my particular acknowledgements for your attention to what fell from me on that occasion.

That your Lordship and your brother may reap fresh laurels in the great cause so properly entrusted to your management, and so successfully begun, is the very ardent wish of your Lordship's most obedient [etc.]