Springfield January 28 1799 Sir, I wish it had been in my power to have forwarded you the Return for the Armory Department sooner. Is it not proper that the Superintendent, Receipt to me for the Tools, utensils, &c Returned on hand in the Armory department Sept 1. 1798.? they are under his immediate care & direction - how am I to account for them otherways? M^r D. Ames Superintendent of the Armory, says he is in great wants of fifteen hundred wt of the best Iron for upper bands, to be roll'd 1½ Inches wide & the twelfth part of an inch thick - also five hundred weight for trigger plates, five tenths of an inch wide & two & [strikethrough: half] tenths of an inch thick - he says this kind is not to be had short of Philadelphia - will you be so good Sir as to order this quantity shiped to N.Y^k or Hartford, for this port. If any quantity of Powder should be ordered for Transportation from this post it will be necessary to have some new Powder Casks procured. I will attend to your direction on this business - The Stationery you mentioned in one of your former letters, for this Department, has not come to hand - I am Sir most respectfully your obedient Servant Joseph Williams P.S. M^r Ames's Receipt enclosed for Military Articles, ought to have accompanied my Military Return, by mistake it was omitted - Samuel Hodgdon Esq.^r [Received, State Dep't, from Nov. 24. 1894. R.F.O.40130.]