is not absolutely certain.
It may be necessary, perhaps, to inform you, that these two officers
cannot act together, which excludes the hopes of ensuring success by a
joint expedition.

I have the honor to be, with the most sincere esteem,

your Excellency's most obedient

and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XVI.--TO GENERAL WASHINGTON, June 11, 1780

TO HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Richmond, June 11, 1780.

Sir,

Major Galvan, as recommended by your Excellency, was despatched to
his station without delay, and has been furnished with every thing he
desired, as far as we were able. The line of expresses formed between
us is such, as will communicate intelligence from one to the other in
twenty-three hours. I have forwarded to him information of our disasters
in the South, as they have come to me.

Our intelligence from the southward is most lamentably defective. Though
Charleston has been in the hands of the enemy a month, we hear nothing
of their movements which can be relied on. Rumors are, that they are
penetrating northward. To remedy this defect, I shall immediately
establish a line of expresses from hence to the neighborhood of
their army, and send thither a sensible, judicious person, to give
us information of their movements. This intelligence will, I hope,
be conveyed to us at the rate of one hundred and twenty miles in the
twenty-four hours. They set out to their stations to-morrow. I wish it
were possible, that a like speedy line of communication could be formed
from hence to your Excellency's head-quarters. Perfect and speedy
information of what is passing in the South, might put it in your power,
perhaps, to frame your measures by theirs. There is really nothing to
oppose the progress of the enemy northward, but the cautious principles
of the military art. North Carolina is without arms. We do not abound.
Those we have, are freely imparted to them; but such is the state of
their resources, that they have not been able to move a single musket
from this State to theirs. All the wagons we can collect, have been
furnished to the Marquis de Kalb, and are assembled for the march of
twenty-five hundred men, under General Stevens, of Culpeper, who will
move on the 19th instant. I have written to Congress to hasten supplies
of arms and military stores for the southern states, and particularly to
aid us with cartridge paper and boxes, the want of which articles, small
as they