To George Washington from Henry Champion, Sr., 25 May 1780
From Henry Champion, Sr.
State of Connecticut—Colchester May 25th 1780
May it please your Excellency, this State have adopted the Measures Recommended by Congress Regulating the Comys Dept., & have done me the Honor to appoint me their superintending Comy, but have Change’d the Chief of my Assistant Purchasers,1 those New appointed (tho very good men) are not so Experience’d,2 & Cannot go on at this, the most Critical Junction to advantage at first Setting out, I am now well supply’d from this state with Cash for further supplies & will Exert my Self to the utmost of my abillities,3 however the want of money from the Continent to pay off my old Debts of Six, Eight, & ten months standing,4 disables most of the good farmers that I depend upon for future supplies from filling their pastures, the price also being limited in this state; which the purchasers may give, & not Exceed,5 I fear, will prevent my being able to Increase the Supplies for Some weeks, I am very Sorry to trouble your Excellency, Especially with any thing disagreable, but from your request, & every other Consideration, Esteem it my duty to Inform you of my prospects in regard to present & future supplies.
I do still, & design, to Continue to purchase in the state of Massachusetts Bay under Colo. Blanes appointment till that state Comes into Some Regulations for themselves.6 I am your Excellencies Most Obedt H. sert
Henry Champion
LS, DLC:GW.
1. Champion is referring to the act “for providing Supplies of certain Articles of Provision and Refreshment for the Use of the Army of the United States of America, and for regulating the Purchases of the Same,” passed by the Connecticut general assembly during its April session. Responding to a congressional resolution requisitioning supplies from the states passed on 25 Feb., the law authorized the appointment of commissaries to purchase Connecticut’s quotas of rum, hay, and beef cattle and named Champion as superintending commissary. The law also created districts, each with an assistant commissary of purchases (, 2:521–26, 529–31; see also Samuel Huntington to GW, 29 Feb., n.2; Clement Biddle to GW, 16 May, n.2; and Ephraim Blaine to GW, 18 May, and n.2 to that document).
2. In April, the Connecticut general assembly appointed twenty purchasers to procure flour and other provisions (see , 2:529–30).
3. On 22 April, the Connecticut council of safety authorized Champion to “receive an order on the Pay-Table for six thousand pounds of the last January emission of bills emitted by this State, and 40,000 pounds continental bills, to enable him to proceed on the business of purchasing &c.” (, 2:541). During a meeting held on 20 May, the council directed that Champion “receive out of the public treasury the sum of seven thousand pounds, L. M., in bills emitted by order of Assembly at their session in January last” (, 3:100; see also Champion to GW, 18 April, and GW to Champion, 4 May). For Champion’s success in procuring provisions, see GW to Samuel Huntington, 27–28 May.
4. For these financial problems, see Ephraim Blaine to GW, 10 April, and Champion to GW, 18 April, and n.1 to that document; see also , 16:79, 362).
5. On 20 May, the Connecticut council of safety had ordered Champion and the state purchasing commissaries “to proceed without delay to purchase the several articles of provisions they are ordered to purchase for the supplying the army” and to “carefully observe the directions given by Congress with respect to the prices, and not exceed the same” (, 3:100). Congress set prices on commodities in its resolution passed on 25 Feb. (see , 16:198–99).
6. The Massachusetts legislature resolved on 19 June to purchase 666,035 pounds of beef “for the use of the United States” (, 21:552–55; see also Circular to the States, 2 June, n.1).