[N^o 2 Duplicate, 10^th Jany 1799 —] [and March 29.] [undecipherable] copied. Military chiefly [Duplicate] Head Quarters Loftus Heights 10 January 1799. Sir I wrote you last from the town of Natchez in Kentucky by M^r Stanbery who had descended the river in quest of furs and have now the honour to inclose you a duplicate of that dispatch. My health being restored I returned to this Cantonment on the 16^th Ultimo and found the Public Service had suffered no material injury during my absence except from desertion. To restrain this vile propensity which bears hard upon the Service I have endeavour in concert with the Governor of the Territory to meet Governor Gayoso's disposition on, for the refusal of an asylum to deserters on either Side which he made to Captain Guian Guian during the Captain's command. We have now lost twelve men by this infamous defection, and if some preventive is not devised the evil will take deep effect on our ranks as the bounties of land to emigrants and the high wages to labourers offered by the Spaniards cannot be concealed from the Troops and will have influence on men of loose morals and unsettled dispositions. Being advised by the Governor of Louisiana that he was ready to evacuate [undecipherable] so soon as our Troops should appear in the neighbourhood of that place, I on the 7^th Instant detached a Subaltern a serjeant and Sixteen rank and file for that service attended by a Guide and interpreter and the Chickasaw Hay little King with a few of his Chiefs and Warriors. Governor Gayoso consents to passage passage of the residue of the Garrison destined to that post through the Territories of his master, with Artillery, ammunition, Stores and provisions, provided the Troops do not halt in New Orleans or the town of Mobile, or hold commerce or communication with the subjects of the province of Louisiana. This being precisely what I should have directed, I can have no objection to the conditions. I shall therefore after due precautions are adjusted for preventing desertion from the Command on its march, apprise the Public of the indulgence and make a saving in the transport of forty five Men two light pieces of ordnance the necessary ammunition Tools Stores and implements, with six months provision of at least fifteen thousand dollars, such is the difficulties of the route over land. But But this movement cannot conveniently take place, before we receive our clothing and an additional supply of Flour and Quarter Masters Stores. You will be pleased to remark that I intend a company for the Garrison in question, and should no obstacle or objection present, that I proposed to make a post below the confluence of the Tombigby and Alabama rivers, and as near the line of demarcation as the nature of the ground may permit. If you see objections to these purposes, you have only to signify them to my Government. You will find from the Correspondence with the Contractors agent, under Cover that he declines furnishing the Troops destined to the Tombigby, in consequence of which I shall be obliged to direct the Quarter Master to procure the necessary Supplies, on on the best terms in his power. This subject is the more embarrassing to me because I remain in ignorance of the terms of the new contract, or the disposition made of the surplus provisions appertaining to the old one. Your last letter to me bears date the 2^d August, the interval is painful and your Silence perplexing. [undecipherable] much to the calamities of our Sea ports and the dispersion of the Officers and Officers of Government, and am apprehensive that the failure of my attempts to open a Communication by Knoxville may have obstructed your Communications by that route. This failure is ascribed by the person employed, to personal indisposition and the bad temper of the upper Creeks. My despatches will in future be sent to the Post Office at Nashville, to take the mails from thence to Knoxville, unless when cases of Conveyance offer such as the present, to Kentucky, Pittsburgh or the Atlantic States. The Troops are gaining Health Generally but Slowly; our Number in Hospital is small, but our Convalescents still unfit for duty exceed eighty. Our Hospital Stores are exhausted and our Stock of Medicine is greatly reduced, which will oblige us to have recourse to New Orleans for occasional Supplies. I hope Sir you have before this ordered forward a fresh assortment, as the diseases of the Climate increase near about the month of June when the annual Floods subside. I am harassed frequently by several Officers, particularly a Major Kingsbury Kingsbury and Captain Richards, whose pretensions to indulgence are strong, but in the present State of Public Affairs, and the general insufficiency of Officers to the Troops under my Command I can spare no man from his post, who is not driven off by disease. I have therefore taken the liberty to refer those Gentlemen to you, as your situation enables you best to decide on the propriety of indulging them. I believe our Stock of Flour and hard bread will Suffice to carry out the old Contract but no longer, and I hear no word of a fresh Supply, indeed our latest arrivals from the Ohio is of October. The ruinous irreparable Condition of the fortifications at Natchez, will oblige me to demolish the exterior range of Palissades Palissades, already rotten and daily tumbling down, and the whole of the Stores will be removed from thence to this place as soon as we are ready to receive them, as I shall consider the tenure of that post dangerous after the reception of the ensuing Floods, the earth at the very verge of the works, having already given way and sunk many feet below the natural surface. You have under Cover a rude general Sketch of the Country from this place to the Mobile river with the position of the Christian Settlements within our limits, and of the most Southern towns of the Choctaw nation called the Six Towns, the Chickasaw Hay towns, and the [undecipherable] towns containing in the whole about 600 Warriors. This sketch is too inaccurate to to serve any other purpose than that of conveying general ideas, but I am taking measures for more accurate information the result of which will be communicated to you. The Commissioners of limits have adjusted the line of demarcation at the half way on Pierre river, One hundred and nine Miles from the Mississippi, and will soon proceed to the Mobile to perform the same Office whither I believe the Surveyors are at present, running the guide line. From the best information I can obtain the line will cross the Mobile river above twelve miles from the head of the Bay, where the town of the same name stands; does it not appear to you Sir that the Gentleman [marginalia: Navigation [undecipherable]] Gentleman who negotiated the Treaty of friendship with Spain, was remiss in stipulating for the navigation of the large rivers which traverse our Territory, and fall into the Gulph of Mexico; the navigation will soon become of National importance and its importance will increase daily. Might not the concession be obtained at the present when the subject is scarcely felt or seen with more facility than at a future day when its advantages to us will become manifest. These Suggestions spring from a sense of duty and therefore I am persuaded you will excuse them. I have of late been visited by five or six hundred Choctaws who are very beggarly and very friendly. I there made the most of the donation Goods which which I found here, but they are now nearly expended, and the importunities of these wretched Savages for blankets, strouds, shirts and Guns are incessant. A deputation of them about three hundred of them lately paid a visit to New Orleans, but I understand they did not receive presents, and those who have returned by this place say they were not treated very courteously or kindly by the Governor. The people of this Territory have recently sent me a petition for Congress with the request I would forward it, but deeming such business foreign to my duties, I transmitted their petition to Governor Sargent for his disposal and sent you a copy of it under Cover. I I observe no indications of any hostile dispositions below, and we are all tranquilly except a few turbulent Spirits of the Territory who are making a fuss about what they do not understand. It is my duty here to correct a material error respecting the width of the river occasioned by the inaccuracy of the Officer who reported on that point. Instead of three hundred yards, I find it opposite the water battery to be barely Seven hundred and four yards, from the summit of one bank to the other, and it may be proper for me to add that the ground opposite to us, is low and inundated during the Floods for many Miles. I will pray orders from you for the purposes I must pursue to extend [undecipherable] the line of the [undecipherable] to so much ground as is necessary to the use of the works to the [undecipherable] erected here, from the circumstance of the site, one hundred or perhaps one hundred and fifty acres will I think be required. In the anxious hope of hearing from you soon I have the honour to be with great consideration and respect Sir Your Most Obed Serv^t. James Wilkinson The Honble James McHenry Secretary of War