Discusses enclosed copies of a document [not present] regarding the establishment of the Society of the Cincinnati and asks von Steuben to forward them to the officers.

Reports that the corps in the detachment at West Point have been dissolved, except for those soldiers whose terms of service have not expired. These 500 men will be commanded by Colonel [Henry] Jackson, presumably at West Point. There is also one corps of artillery commanded by Major Sebastian Bauman. Asks Steuben to instruct Jackson on the mode by which the remaining soldiers will be mustered and inspected. Plans to depart soon for Boston, leaving Jackson in charge.

In French except for refrain - Blow the trumpet in Zion. Von Steuben criticizes Aedanus Burke, aka Cassius, the author of an anti-Society of the Cincinnati pamphlet (Considerations on the Society or Order of Cincinnati, 1783). Burke, a South Carolina Supreme Court justice, accused the society of trying to create a race of hereditary Patricians or Nobility, with von Steuben as their grand master. Von Steuben jokingly passes the accusation over to Knox, suggesting that the young Marquis Harry Knox has used him as a cat's paw to further his aristocratic ends. Noted as written in Shulkill (perhaps Schuylkill, in Pennsylvania). Docketed by Knox on verso.

Discusses an atrocious violation of the Laws of Nations by a Mr. Honniwell and urges a just punishment for the crime. See GLC02437.02125 for a related document.

Informs Washington of the status of several commanders. States that the Baron von Steuben, is at Saratoga, New York and to expect more information regarding the situation at Newburgh, New York from Colonel Villefranche. Asks to send a detachment to their next assignment. Knox's retained draft.

Writes to Osgood, then a member of the Continental Congress and the treasury board, to request that Congress pay Baron von Steuben. States that it has been owing to [von Steuben] that a substantial discipline has been established in the American Army, that he is particularly attached to the cause of America, but can no longer live without pay. (See GLC02437.01480 for the retained copy of this letter).