Philadelphia, March 6th, 1776.

I have written Mr. Cushing a long letter on cannon foundery, which you will see. I am desirous to have cannon founding set up our way if we have ore.

Thus, my friend, you find a lawyer, whose business is scientific, labouring through a long detail of the mechanism of cannon foundery; let not this surprise you, for if cannon are the ultima ratio, surely a discourse on them must be chopping logic.

In search of true freedom in vain do we roam, To hold it for ever we must find it at home.

America never can support her freedom till we have a sufficient source of arms and ammunition of all species among ourselves, and the more these sources are distributed among the colonies, the greater the security of external and internal peace. In pursuance of this idea, I am of a com­173mittee who are labouring to push saltpetre and gunpowder making through all the colonies, and are also devising methods to establish a regular and extensive manufacture of muskets, and hope soon to exhibit.

* * * * * *1

When I began, I intended to have answered some of your political observations, but having exerted myself so much on the sine qua non, you will neither doubt my orthodoxy, nor expect my answers, till I have taken breath from writing, and you from reading.

Thomas Cushing

Original not located; reprinted from the New-York Review and Atheneum Magazine 2(1826):400.

1.

Ellipsis in the printed transcript.