So idle were the gentlemen I had employed in my copying business during my absence, that with my utmost exertions I coud not get the books in readiness in time to send them to you before your departure from Alexandria. Every thing is now prepared, & I watch the stage continually for some person who will take them to Philadelphia. I am extremely anxious that you shoud give the volume an attentive reading & make all those corrections which I am sure will suggest themselves to you.

I have not been able to compare the second copy with the first & I am sure it is very incorrect in many respects. A part of it has been made by a person who will insert very different words from those intended by the author & who is also extremely inattentive to pointing. When the book is read by yourself it may perhaps be compared, or if not Morgan must attend to comparing it immediately before Wayne puts it to the press. In going over the first copy I have been struck with the propriety of Making peragraphs where none are at present made & have marked such places thus # or thus ¶. Mention this both to Wayne & Morgan.

I hope you will come on to Philadelphia as soon as your business in Jersey is over as I cannot say how soon an opportunity of sending on the box may present itself.

I repeat my axious wish that you will read the book with attention enough to make corrections. I wish too that you woud note them & inform me of them.

The papers originally designed to close the first volume mention the appointment of General Washington. The alterations of the arrangement of volumes require an alteration in this respect also as the appointment is mentioned more at large & more properly in the beginning of the chapter which will now follow that in which it is first stated. This repetition woud now be improper. It will therefore be necessary to make some alterations. The sentence¹ may stop with saying that Congress proceeded to organize the <higher> departments of the army without <na>ming the persons appointed,² & afterwards when in the succeeding chapter the appointment of the commander in chief is mentioned the other appointments may be stated in a note. Your