[270] War Office November 10^th 1797 [Jacob Sheafe Esq^r] Sir The Anchor which is in the Navy Yard at Portsmouth of 14. 7. 14 being desirable and much wanted for the Frigate Constitution lying in the Chesapeake below Baltimore I have to request that you will be pleased to get it conveyed to the said Ship in the cheapest and most expeditious manner possible. If no opportunity should offer at Portsmouth for a vessel [undecipherable] the Chesapeake you are in that case to [undecipherable] either the masters of Boston or New York and by no means to let it be [undecipherable] to either of those places, but to be looking along side of the Frigate which will be by that time at Anchor in some port of the Chesapeake Bay or Patapsco I am Sir J. McH [M^r Bayard Vaughan] Sir You are hereby appointed as Clerk of the Navy Yard at Philadelphia, your pay to commence from the Eleventh inst. at the rate of Two hundred dollars [undecipherable] after that compensation it will be expected that you perform the duty of Clerk of the said Yard agreeably to the instructions which are now enclosed and all such others as may be given from time to time [undecipherable] you by the Secretary of War for your direction. Given at the War Office of the United States this 11^th Nov^r 1797 J. McH