[P.S. The dispatches for Fort Washington you will please to forward by the first conveyance —] N^o 12 From Gen^l Knox Sec^y of War War Department August 10^th 1792. Sir, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 3 instant containing enclosures from Brig^r General Wilkinson, Captain Cafs, and Mr Rosecrantz— I thank you for your early attention in making this communication, which with additional letters from General Putnam and Israel Chapin I thought of Sufficient consequence to justify the expense of an express to transmit the same to you on the eighth instant P.M. Let the event of the council at Au Glaise, be what it may, Peace or War, it is pretty evident for the three following reasons, that we shall not be able this year to make any very important offensive operations. First— Because the final and explicit result of the council at Au Glaise, will not probably be known until deep in October, if they wait for the advice of the six nations & the Canada Indians. Secondly Because our recruits will not be assembled in Sufficient numbers. Thirdly Because our army will not be Sufficiently disciplined according to the nature of the warfare in which it is to be engaged to justify our risking a general engagement far Advanced on the But— Indian Country. But if war must finally be the result, notwithstanding all overtures, most certainly, the great mass of the citizens of the United States, must cordially & vigourously support a war, which cannot be terminated but by a manifestation of our Superiority, or a base abandonment of our frontiers to Savage cruelty, and the culpable intrigues and support of an an improper interference on the part of a people who ought to act otherwise. If force must decide the contest I join heartily with you, that the parties & tribes who have committed the greatest barbarities ought if possible to be punished with such exemplary severity, as to deter in future other tribes from a repetition of similar crimes against the United States. You mention that many essential articles mentioned in the invoice from the 1^st of January to the 30 of June, have not yet arrived and not a single article contained in that from the first to the Seventeenth of July. I wish you had men[tio]ned the articles which had not arrived of those sent before the 30^th of June in order that a strict scrutiny might be made after the delinquents. The Waggoners receipt for the articles and either they or their owners are people of property & responsible for their conduct; I pray you immediately to direct Major Craig or the Quarter master General to transmit me a list of such deficient articles, as not a moments time ought to be lost in bringing the culprits to justice. A Sufficient time had hardly elapsed for any articles forwarded after the tenth of July to have reached Pittsburgh, it requiring from twenty one to twenty five days for the journey— any— any Stores forwarded before the tenth, ought to have been by calculation by the time you wrote— Please to direct Major Craig to be punctual in notifying the days the Stores are delivered. The contractors of clothing have not furnished blankets agreeably to their contract, they are searching the large towns for those of equal goodness with the Pattern blanket — The shoes have not yet arrived from New York— The Clothing for the old troops of the second Sub Legion will be forwarded without the blankets if they should not arrive in two days. Captain Mills was to march yesterday from [strikethrough: from] Carlile— His detachment is in good order, he having but very few deserters. The desertion of Ashetons detachment was prodigious— we estimate ten or twelve who are taken & will march with Eatons company when it arrives. I wish you to enquire [underline: informally] whether the march of Ashetons [undecipherable] detachment was conducted with proper regularity, I have been informed otherwise, and that the men were suffered to straggle without officers. — I hope Ballard Smith may have joined you with his detachment. The detachment of Bowyers Cavalry from Fredericksburgh— The detachment of Hannah's or Brooks company & I hope Stephenson's company complete from Shepherds town Virginia & also the recruits from Hagerstown for Rodgers Cavalry have all been mustered by Major Rudolph, and ordered forward, and I hope will soon join you. A—