[Letter from the Secretary at War Dece.^r 1787. ^th 15.] War Office, December 15^th 1787 Sir, I have received your letter of the 4^th instant. I thank you for your alacrity in looking up the public stores, and your account of the expenses attending the same, together with your pay, up to the first of January ensuing, which shall be paid as soon as the ensuing year as the Board of treasury will furnish money for that purpose. I can by no means approve of the two [undecipherable] pounders having been taken away by the enemy of Major [undecipherable] furnace — [undecipherable] though of the forty [undecipherable] assigned ought to have been produced instead of a [undecipherable] however unfortunate — after which the [undecipherable] should have been delivered [undecipherable] by my orders or an order of Congress — But as the reported [undecipherable]ers have chosen to proceed in their own mode you must call upon them for their [undecipherable], and [undecipherable] them to [undecipherable] in order that [undecipherable] take the measures which shall [undecipherable] proper and necessary. I enclose you a copy of a M^r [undecipherable]'s letter, in which he asks for two [undecipherable] pounders in lieu [undecipherable] — [undecipherable] & [undecipherable] stated to have been [undecipherable], [undecipherable] and my answer thereto. I am Sir Your humble Serv^t H Knox [Col. [undecipherable] Cing[undecipherable]]