At this very time, and without waiting for any answer from you, I have procured for you about two hundred pieces of brass cannon, four pounders, which will be sent to you by the nearest way, 200,000 lbs of cannon powder, 20,000 excellent fusils, some brass mortars, bombs, cannon balls, bayonets, platines, clothes, linens, &c. for the clothing of your troops, and lead for musket balls. An officer of the greatest merit for artillery and genius, accompanied by lieutenants, officers, artillerists, cannoniers, &c. whom we think necessary for the service, will go for Philadelphia, even before you have received my first despatches. This gentleman is one of the greatest presents that my attachment can offer you. Your deputy, Mr Deane, agrees with me in the treatment which he thinks suitable to his office, and I have found the power of this deputy sufficient, that I should prevail with this officer to depart, under the sole engagement of the deputy respecting him, the terms of which I have not the least doubt but Congress will comply with. The secrecy necessary in some part of the operation, which I have undertaken for your service, requires also, on your part, a formal resolution, that all the vessels and their demands should be constantly directed to our house alone, in order that there may be no idle chattering or time lost--two things that are the ruin of affairs. You will advise me what the vessels contain, which you shall send into our ports. I shall choose so much of their loading, in return for what I have sent, as shall be suitable to me, when I have not been able before hand to inform you of the cargoes which I wish. I shall facilitate to you the loading, sale, and disposal of the rest. For instance, five American vessels have just arrived in the port of Bordeaux, laden with salt fish; though this merchandise coming from strangers is prohibited in our ports, yet as soon as your deputy had told me that these vessels were sent to him by you, to raise money from the sale for aiding him in his purchases in Europe, I took so much care that I secretly obtained from the Farmers-General an order for landing it without any notice being taken of it. I could even, if the case had so happened, have taken upon my own account these cargoes of salted fish, though it is no way useful to me, and charged myself with its sale and disposal, to simplify the operation and lessen the embarrassments of the merchants, and of your deputy.