[N° 30. To Major Gen^r Knox. Legionville] Sir, Legionville 16 Novem^r 1792 I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 9^th instant with the inclosures, and agreeable to your request will give you your my reasons for ordering the deposits of provisions as stated in my letter to the Contractors of the 8^th ultimo. You'll please to observe that the daily issues are only ordered up to the 15^th of April, from and after which period, until grass and cattle can be procured say the 15^th of June at the earliest, the daily issues were to be made from the respective deposits for sixty days which for an Army of four thousand men, making allowance for its armage together with other contingencies would require at least five thousand rations p diem. and of consequence 300,000 rations out of the 535,700 ordered for the troops at this place or its vicinity & at Fort Washington to Fort Jefferson inclusive. So that from & after the 15^th of June there would only remain 238,700, for all the operating Army's Garrisons in that quarter. I was further induced to order in advance from a conviction of the difficulty of manufacturing a single barrel of flour in the Western country after the 15^th of June, of which we have had a convincing proof, the late & present season. So that unless the Contractors were authorised & enabled to secure the [strikethrough: undecipherable] flour at an early period, it would scarcely be in their power to effect it in the Summer. Another reason, & a very conclusive one with me, was the difficulty, the almost impracticability of forwarding the quantities of provision necessary for offensive operation was that business left until the advance of the Legion into the Indian Country, as I must at all events retard our march, & [undecipherable] the troops to expose the numerous and constant efforts to the attacks & insults of the enemy which in the end might bring on very serious & disagreeable consequences. those, together with the reasons already given in my letter of the 9^th instant are [undecipherable] the causes & motives which induced me to order the deposits of provision in advance, since which I have directed the Contractors to abridge the most part of the ration 180,000 at Fort Jefferson & St Clair & in lieu thereof to state feed Cattle to that amount, in readiness to move with the troops at the shortest notice. After having thus given you my reasons for ordering the deposits of rations in advance, together with the explanation on the subject, I shall in due deference to your orders & instructions countermand the orders heretofore given the Contractors so as to quadrate with your order of the 3 instant to the Secretary of the Treasury as far as circumstances will admit, at the same time, it is a duty which I owe to myself to declare, that it is contrary to my own judgement and breaks in upon arrangements already made, should the war progress. Permit me now to inform you that we have a report that the Corn Planter has returned from the Council of the Hostile Indians at Au Glaize, and that he is expected at Fort Franklin about this time, in consequence of which I immediately despatched