It is not improbable that the Enemy have a plan of cyphering their Letters which is pretty general among their Chiefs: if so, your Excellency, will perhaps reap Benefit from making your Secretary take a Copy of the Keys and observations which I send to General Greene, through your Care.(1)
With every Wish for your Success and Glory, I am, your Excellencys Obliged & Humble Servant, James Lovell
1 For which see the preceding entry. Acknowledging that he had indeed benefitted from Lovell's efforts, Washington replied on October 6 that "My Secretary has taken a Copy of the Cyphers, and by help of one of the Alphabets has been able to decypher one paragraph of a Letter lately intercepted going from Ld Cornwallis to Sir Hy Clinton." Washington, Writings (Fitzpatrick), 23:189 90.