transaction, and a persuasion that it would not be so economical as I
had at first been taught to expect, were powerful additional motives
with me for accepting Captain Gillon's offer relative to the South
Carolina frigate, in order to avail myself of the supplies in his
possession, and to complete his vacant tonnage by purchases in
Holland, where the vicinity of the seaport and manufacturing towns
insured despatch. Copies of all the papers, relative to the supplies,
are in the hands of the Minister Plenipotentiary. I apprized him of
the necessity of watching the punctual execution of the terms of
Sabatier & Co's agreement, notwithstanding the superintendence of the
War Department. The artillery, arms, ammunition, and encamping
supplies, were to be collected at Brest from different arsenals in
Brittany and elsewhere, at the same rates at which they were provided
for the national service.

When the subject of casting howitzers, conformably to the British
calibre, came to be more minutely and definitively discussed,
difficulties with respect to the scarcity of materials, the danger of
errors in the proportion, the want of a proper person to inspect the
business, in a word, objections of different kinds were started;
these, added to the facility of casting shells in America, determined
me finally to substitute six inch howitzers of French calibre.
Experience has proved, on a comparison of their effects with those of
the larger sized howitzers, that the difference is trifling, and that
the former will answer all the purposes of the latter, while their
proportions render them more manageable, and economise ammunition. The
French artillerists, enlightened by this discovery, have determined
the reform of all their larger howitzers.

Upon my arrival at Brest I found the whole of the articles agreed to
be furnished for the first convoy were not yet arrived. In these
circumstances I substituted some articles which I found in the
magazine there, that there might not be any further loss of time, and
that there should be the least possible interval between our sailing
and the embarcation of the specie, which once commenced could not be
kept secret in passing through a number of hands, and might be a
temptation to enterprises on the part of the enemy. The same motive
determined me not to shift the whole of the money into cases, which
would have been more portable. This precaution became indispensable
however with respect to two o