I have to acknowledge the Receipt of your Excellency’s Letter of the 10th Instant. Time will not at present permit me to make any Observations on the Subjects therein mentioned. The immediate Object of giving you the Trouble of this is a fresh Communication from the Eastward which represents the State of Massachusets as in a most dangerous and critical Situation; the Danger indeed extends immediately to all the Eastern States and the Consequences cannot be unimportant to the other States in the Union. Till very lately the Insurrections in Massachusets were considered as the ebulitions of Discontent arising from the transient Inconveniences they suffer from the Stagnation of Commerce and the other usual Effects of changing from the diffusive circulation of Money in War to the Habits of Frugality and Oeconnomy adapted to Peace. But the Discontents now assume a more alarming Aspect, and take Root in a variety of Causes which were hardly supposed to have Existence in America. A total Abolition of all Debts both public and Private, and even a general Distribution of Property, are not without Advocates. Men who have respectable Standings and Characters and possessed of decent Shares of Property are said to countenance the general Insurgency tho’ they avowedly claim less Reform (as they call it) than the others, but even they propose to reliquidate the public Debts and then pay them off in a Paper Money to be created without Funds and to make it a legal Tender. Strange as it may appear, it is said that five Counties containing more than half the Freemen of the State have large Majorities, and some are almost unanimous the Measures of Insurgency. It is conjectured, and the Conjecture is founded in at least plausible Circumstances, that foreign Influence has no little weight in their Councils, that they have a great Degree of Systematic Order in their Measures, and are ready on an Alarm to come forth an organized Army of not less than 10,000 Men armed and Officered.

Whether these alarming Circumstances are magnified or not Time must discover, but these Communications are from high Authority. Prudence however requires that they be made a discreet use of. Your Excellency’s known Prudence and Judgment can only justify me in the Communication I am now making, and at present I trust you will not extend it as it is under a Seal of Secrecy in Congress. Some Resolution will probably issue for an Augmentation of Troops, the Reasons assigned for which may be our Intelligence respecting the Western Indians; but in Fact this Augmentation seems to be necessary to the preservation of interior Government.

I write in too much Haste to be accurate or correct but on such an Occasion your Excellency will excuse Blemishes of this Kind. The Wisdom of the most experienced is not too much for a Crisis of this Kind. I shall therefore hope for some Observations on the Subject from Your Excellency.

The last Minute of the Post hour is arrived. I must therefore only say that with perfect Respect I am Your Excellency’s most obedient Servant.