War department 11. April 1799 Sir, I have received this morning your letters of the 8. and 9. instant with a package for Colonel Carvel Hall, which shall be forwarded. In your letter of the 9 you urge me to send forward the Clothing and money to all the States in which Officers have been appointed as suggested in a former letter. The paymaster for Colonel Ogdens regiment has not yet got to Philadelphia. It has been thought proper therefore to retain the money until his arrival here, destined to the recruiting service for that regiment, as well as the advance you have required for its Officers. The advance for the Officers of Colonel Smiths regiment has been transmitted yesterday to the Paymaster Lieut James Smith and the proportion of recruiting money will follow to day. It would unnecessarily multiply accounts, writing and instructions, were money to be sent to persons in the respective States to be paid over by them to the Regimental paymasters, without perhaps facilitating in any degree the recruiting service. I shall be ready to forward the monies you may require the moment you apprise me of the Paymasters who are to receive and be accountable for it. I have attended very particularly to the measures in operation to provide a full supply of Cloathing for a general commencement of the recruiting service, and find that the exertions of the workmen employed and their number are such as to afford the most flattering expectations that the supply will in a short time be commensurate to the demand. The Cloathing for the New York and Connecticut Regiments are in great forwardness and it is likely will be sent on next week. The Pennsylvania and Jersey Regiments will be the next prepared for distribution. It will be necessary that I should be informed of the name of the Officer who will be fixed at each Station for the Jersey and Pennsylvania Regiment. [*] This information is not to be collected from any of your arrangements yet communicated. When this is known the clothing will be made up in parcels and marked in the Officers names, to be forwarded by the Paymaster in the first instance to them respectively where his position will render it proper, or by the Quarter Master or Agent agreeably to his orders. In both cases he will be charged with the whole in the books of the Superintendant of military supplies.— It is offered for a consideration, whether the Officers at each recruiting rendezvous might not immediately on their receiving their recruiting instructions and recruiting money proceed to inlist, and transfer their recruits in squads, to the general rendezvous of the district or Circle, there to be cloathed. [+] Lieut. Smiths bond was not sent in your letter of the 8. and has not yet been received. The subject matter of your letter of the 8. will be duly weighed and attended to. In the mean while it is hoped that the existing system for procuring and issuing supplies will not occasion any material embarasment to the service until one more perfect can be adopted. This system is generally suggested in my letter dated the 21. of March Ulto.— I have the honor to be with great respect Your obed Servant James McHenry Major General Alexander Hamilton