SIR,--Your favor of the 16th instant is come to hand, together with the acts of Congress of the 26th of August for establishing provision for soldiers and sailors maimed or disabled in the public service,--of the 26th of September for organizing the treasury, a proclamation for a general thanksgiving, and three copies of the alliance between his most Christian Majesty and these United States. I lost no time in laying your letter before the privy council, and in deliberating with them on the subject of sending 1000 militia to Charlestown, South Carolina. I beg to assure Congress of the great zeal of every member of the executive here to give full efficacy to their designs on every occasion. But on the present, I am very sorry to observe, that obstacles great and I fear unsurmountable are opposed to the immediate march of the men. Upon requisition to the deputy quartermaster-general in this department for tents, kettles, blankets, and wagons, he informs they cannot be had. The season when the march must begin will be severe and inclement, and, without the forementioned necessaries, impracticable to men indifferently clad and equipped as they are in the present general scarcity of clothes. The council, as well as myself, are not a little perplexed on comparing this requisition to defend South Carolina and Georgia from the assaults of the enemy, with that made a few days past for galleys to conquer East Florida. The galleys have orders to rendezvous at Charlestown, which I was taught to consider as a place of acknowledged safety; and I beg leave to observe, that there seems some degree of inconsistency in marching militia such a distance in the depth of winter, under the want of necessaries, to defend a place which the former measures seemed to declare safe. The act of Assembly whereby it is made lawful to order their march, confines the operations to measures merely defensive to a sister State, and of whose danger there is certain information received. However, as Congress have not been pleased to explain the matters herein alluded to, and altho' a good deal of perplexity remains with me on the subject, I have by advice of the privy council given orders for 1000 men to be instantly got into readiness to march to Charlestown, and they will march as soon as they are furnished with tents, kettles, and wagons. In the mean time, if intelligence is received that their march is essential to the preservation of either of the States of South Carolina or Georgia the men will encounter every difficulty, and have orders to proceed in the best way they can without waiting to be supplied with those necessaries commonly afforded to troops even on a summer's march.