ur prospects;
but this alone would be a work of much time, and great magnitude. It
may suffice to give the sum of them, which I shall do in a few words,
viz:

"Instead of having magazines filled with provisions, we have a scanty
pittance scattered here and there in the different states.

"Instead of having our arsenals well supplied with military stores,
they are poorly provided, and the workmen all leaving them.--Instead
of having the various articles of field equipage in readiness to
deliver, the quartermaster general is but now applying to the several
states (as the dernier ressort) to provide these things for their
troops respectively. Instead of having a regular system of
transportation established upon credit--or funds in the
quartermaster's hands to defray the contingent expenses of it--we have
neither the one or the other; and all that business, or a great part
of it, being done by military impressment, we are daily and hourly
oppressing the people, souring their tempers, and alienating their
affections. Instead of having the regiments completed to the new
establishments (and which ought to have been so by the ---- of ----
[Transcriber's Note: end parenthesis missing] agreeably to the
requisitions of congress, scarce any state in the union has, at this
hour, one-eighth part of its quota in the field; and there is little
prospect that I can see of ever getting more than half. In a word,
instead of having every thing in readiness to take the field, we have
nothing. And instead of having the prospect of a glorious offensive
campaign before us, we have a bewildered and gloomy prospect of a
defensive one; unless we should receive a powerful aid of ships, land
troops and money from our generous allies: and these at present are
too contingent to build upon."

NOTE--No. VI. _See Page 405_

York in Virginia, 17th October, 1781, half past four, P.M.

SIR,--I have this moment been honoured with your excellency's letter
dated this day. The time limited for sending my answer will not admit
of entering into the details of articles, but the basis of my
proposals will be, that the garrisons of York and Gloucester shall be
prisoners of war with the customary honours; and for the convenience
of the individuals which I have the honour to command, that the
British shall be sent to Britain, and the Germans to Germany, under
engagements not to serve against France, America, or their allies,
until released or regularly exchan