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easily as to another : that circumstance, therefore, may be thrown out of the question. As to bread, I suppose they will require about forty or forty-five thousand bushels of grain a year. The place to which it is to be brought to them, is about the centre of the State. Besides, that the country round about is fertile, all the grain made in the counties adjacent to any kind of navigation, may be brought by water to within twelve miles of the spot. For these twelve miles, wagons must be employed ; I suppose half a dozen will be a plenty. Perhaps, this part of the expense might have been saved, had the barracks been built on the water ; but it is not sufficient to justify their being abandoned now they are built. Wagonage, indeed, seems to the commissariat, an article not worth economising. The most wanton and studied circuity of transportation has been practised : to mention only one act, they have bought quantities of flour for these troops in Cumberland, have -ordered it to be wagoned down to Manchester, and wagoned thence up to the barracks. This fact happened to fall within my own knowledge. I doubt not there are many more such, in order either to produce their total removal, or to run up the expenses of the present situation, and satisfy Congress that the nearer they are brought to the commissary s own bed, the cheaper they will be subsisted. The grain made in the western counties may be brought partly in wagons, as conveniently to this as to any other
Cce ; perhaps more so, on account of its vicinity to one of the t passes through the Blue Ridge ; and partly by water, as it is near to James river, to the navigation of which, ten counties are adjacent above the falls. When I said that the grain might be brought hither from all the counties of the State, adjacent to navi gation, I did not mean to say it would be proper to bring it from all. On the contrary, I think the commissary should be instruct ed, after the next harvest, not to send one bushel of grain to the barracks from below the falls of the rivers, or from the northern counties. The counties on tide water are accessible to the calls for our own army. Their supplies ought, therefore, to be husband ed for them. The counties in the northwestern parts of the State are not only within reach for our own grand army, but pecu liarly necessary for the support of Macintosh s army ; or for the support of any other northwestern expedition, which the uncertain conduct of the Indians should render necessary ; insomuch, that if the supplies of that quarter should be misapplied to any other pur pose, it would destroy, in embryo, every exertion, either for par ticular or general safety there. The counties above tide water, in the middle and southern and western parts of the country, are not accessible to calls for either of those purposes, but at such an
