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C. C.
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had been innoculated. This the present posture of our affairs
absolutely forbids. The campaign will soon open; and with
all the diligence practicable, it is to be feared the reinforce-
ments will not arrive in time to enable the commander in chief
to take measures the most necessary and advantageous, before
the enemy get reinforced. General Washington has received
intelligence that they are embarking troops at New York and
Rhode Island; destined (it is said) for Philadelphia; and he is
to the last degree anxious to have the reinforcements speedily
join him; in the first place that he may be prepared for
defence; in the second to take advantage of any favourable
circumstance which may happen to injure the enemy.
The recommendation to provide cartridge boxes and tin
cannisters for cartridges is given, because of the almost total
want of them in the public stores, and the impossibility oi
making a number in any degree equal to the demands of the
army, in the public manufactories, where the workmen are
few, and it is impossible to encrease them: agreeable to the
direction of congress, the board give the following description
of the tin cannisters.
They are to be six inches and an half deep, or long; three
inches and three quarters of an inch broad (this breadth
receiving the cartridges lengthways, as they lie in a horizontal
possition) and two inches and seven eighths of an inch thick ;
(this thickness admitting four cartridges, to lay side by side) a
box of these dimensions, in the clear, will well contain thirty
six cartridges with ounce balls. A wire is to be fixed in all
the edges at the top, and then each side turned down (out-
wards) a full half inch, and soldered. The cover is to be a full
half inch deep, so that when fixed on the cannister the edges
shall come close down to the ledge formed by the inclosed
wire. This cover at one end turns on a hinge an inch and a
quarter long, the wire (fixed as above mentioned) being laid
naked, that space, for the purpose; and a piece of tin is run
underneath this wire, doubled together, and soldered on the
inside of one end of the cover. The soldier carries a can-
nister by a shoulder belt, as he does a cartridge box: and for
this reason the cannister has fixed to it three loops of tin, each
half an inch wide, with the edges turned back, to be smooth
and strong; one of them is placed underneath the middle of
the bottom, and one on each of the narrowest sides, the latter
at four inches distance from the bottom to their lower edges.
The loops are to be sent down at each end and very well sol-
dered, leaving a space to admit a leathern belt full one inch
and a half wide, and nearly an eighth of an inch thick. The
cover opens against one part of the belt, which causes it to
fall down, after a cartridge is taken out, by wh means the rest
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