228 Journal and Correspondence

fore desire you will please to send us £1000 by the first good
conveyance as we are pushing with double diligence and con-
sequently double expence. We have the Honor to be Gentⁿ
Your most obed^{t
servts
Willm Lux, And Buchanan, John Moale
Jno Smith, Wm Buchanan
The Commanding Officer of the Regulars stationed
here is much wanted :
To the Honl the Council of Safety of Md}

Original.

[Virginia Committee to Council.]

Williamsburg March 9^th 1776.
Gentlemen: The great length of Potomack River from its
mouth to Alexandria where men of war can go & the proba-
bility of some attempts being made by the enemy in that
Quarter make it prudent in our opinion to erect beacons or
signals for communicating intelligence of their approach up
the river in a more speedy manner than can be done by land.
We have therefore appointed Colonel Mercer of the third &
Colonel Peachey of the fifth Regiment to examine the river &
fix the different posts & mode of continuing these Signals, but
as we are aware that the course of the river will make it nec-
essary that many of them should be set in your Province, we
hope you will approve the measure & name Commissioners
on your part to co-operate with the above named Gentlemen
in effecting it. We hear of no more naval arrivals & the
former quiet as to depredations on shore & up the rivers, con-
fining themselves to seisures in the Bay when they have an
opportunity. We have had no intelligence of General Clinton
since he went out :
We are Gentlemen your most obedient Servants, For the
Commee of Safety of Virginia. Edm^d Pendleton, S.

C. S. C.

[J. A. Thomas to Council.]

S^t Marys County 9^th March 1776.
Gen^l Since my last I have contracted for a number of Gun
locks which will be sent up by the Post, In my last I mentioned
my having stationed a Part of my Company at the Mouth of
Patuxent River, and the rest will go to the Lower Part of the
County on Potomack as soon as Provision can be made for
them, which is here extremely difficult to be done, If I may be
allowed, I will immediately go to the eastern shore and get a
quantity of Pork and Hogs Lard, I suppose fifty barrels of
Pork would be sufficient for my Company until the Fall, pro-