On this day 250 years ago at his headquarters in New York, Gen. Washington wrote John Hancock to implore the Continental Congress to provide pay for the Continental Army because “something is due to the Man who puts his life in his hand, hazards his health & forsakes the Sweets of domestic enjoyments” and a soldier “cannot ruin himself and Family to serve his Country.”
Also on that day 250 years ago in Nantz, France, Monsieur H. Champigny wrote to the Continental Congress:
The desire I have always had of being serviceable to you has induced me to seek for every means of being so. I imagined I would not succeed better than by engaging workmen capable of supplying your troops in America with arms and ammunition; in consequence of which, I have considered of ways to collect a number of artificers, sufficient to establish a manufactory of arms, in which may be made two thousand guns a month. This, I think, may easily be effected. I have also looked out for a man to cast brass cannon, and have found one well skilled; but he demands a handsome establishment. I have also found a person to cast iron cannon, a refiner of saltpetre, a director of powder mills. All these workmen amount to the number of five hundred. If their service is agreeable to you, you can send vessels here, to take them in; and, in the mean while, provide, on the side of some small rivers, where the works are to be established, wood, stone, and bricks, necessary for building the houses and furnaces. You must also provide good copper, tin, and German steel, if possible. I believe I ought to inform that every man will cost you, one with another, a thousand French crowns. But each will be provided with a fusil and a brace of pistols.
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