Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 389

S^r The inclosed Letter I am desired to forward to y^r Exllency
from Col^o Washington & to request you to commissionate
& appoint him Second in Command in case these Colonies
shall raise a sufficient Number of Troops for carrying on an
Expedition or making a Diversion to the Westward this
Summer; As M^r Washington is much esteemed in Virginia
& really seems a Gentlⁿ of Merit I should be exceedingly glad
to learn that your Excellency is not averse to favouring his
Application & Request. The Assembly of this province is still
sitting but no Supply Bill is yet passed & I hear that the
Virginians have not yet come to any Resolution to grant such
Supplies as you have recommended to them & required.
If I shall have any prospect of being enabled to do any thing
this Summer in pursuance of the Commission with which you
have been pleased to honour me I must beg the favour of your
Excellency to give me an Order for all His Majesty's Stores of
any kind that I can find or discover in Virg^a or this province
lest the Persons in whose Custody they were left last year may
not think my Receipt or Order alone for them a sufficient
Indemnification I am &c.

[Sharpe to Shirley.]

14^th of April 1756 —
S^r
I do myself the honour to acknowledge the Receipt of your
Lett^r dated at Boston the 28^th Ult. but am sorry that the
measures taken by the Assembly of this Province & the Delay
of those of the two neighbouring Colonies to grant any Sup-
plies obliges me to acquaint your Excellency that I have now
very little hopes of seeing such a Number of Men raised by
them this Summer as would be able to carry your Excellency's
Scheme for the Reduction of Fort Du Quesne into Execution;
By a Return made me by the Lieut' Colonel of the Virg^a Regi-
ment the 22^d of March I find that it does not exceed 440 Men.
Capt Dagworthy's Company of fifty that has been kept up by
this Province the Assembly will lay me under a Necessity of
disbanding unless you will choose to take upon yourself to
support it during the Campaign or order them to N York & take
them into the Regiments under your own Command. I can-
not find that the Commissioners who went from Virg^a to the
Cherokees are yet returned or have been lately heard of;