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Dear Sir:

Your favor of yesterday I have now before me. I am sorry Mr. Bloodworth is not likely to go in time to procure the paper for the

Currency, and I am fearful you will not be able to get a person on whom you can rely to effect this business as you know the utmost attention must be paid to making no more of the paper than is necessary, and whoever gets the paper must see to that; nay, he ought to see that the apparatus should be either immediately destroyed or the parts so broken and disjointed as to make it difficult to imitate the paper, lines and letters. Under these considerations, if it be possible for you to go on yourself I am satisfied the business will be sooner done and Counterfeits much more likely to be Guarded against. The expense either way will be considerable, but in my judgment it ought to be submitted to.

At this Season of the year a passage from Portsmouth to the head of the Bay will be uncertain and precarious on account of the Ice. If I was going myself I should proceed by the Western side of the head of the Bay, the Rout of which from hence take as follows:

The distance I will not say in every instance will be found correct but I believe most of them are right, and the way as good as any road you can go, the accommodations perhaps better & the ferries shorter.

I send you a general recommendation which may answer better than particular letters, as it may occasionally be made use of.

Mr. Blount is not returned that I have heard of, nor have I a syllable from him since I left New Bern.

If you go yourself I shall be glad to see you here on your way. My dispatches shall be made out to about the time you propose setting out; if you do not go, please to let the person who does, call on me.

I am uneasy that we have no prospect of being represented in Congress shortly.

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