Head Quarters, September 2, 1780
Sir:
I beg leave to inform Your Excellency that the Commission of Colo Price of your line, has been transmitted to me in a Letter dated at Frederick Town the 31st of April last, informing of his determination to resign. The Letter was a most unreasonable time on its way and by some means was not signed, but from the subject of it and the circumstance of its inclosing his Commission without doubt it came from him. Your Excellency, if You think proper will communicate his resignation to the Board of War, with your Certificate directing the promotion of the Officer who is to succeed in consequence and such other promotions as the event must involve. The Officers promoted will be entitled to rank from the 31st of April.
I also beg leave to inform Your Excellency that I have within a few days past received a Letter from Major John Stewart of the Maryland line dated at Baltimore the 12th Ulto. in which he mentions "that the command of the Additional Regiment raising by the State, has been given to a Mr Jones, who was a Young Captain in the third Regiment and who resigned last Winter and suggesting that he had left the Officers of the line in a state of great dissatisfaction, and that he anticipated the most fatal consequences from the appointment whenever they should be informed of it." From the experience I have had in cases which were similar, I cannot but add that I am much afraid the event will be attended with great uneasiness and indeed disagreeable convulsions. The making this communication is a matter of delicacy with me, but I confidently rely that I shall stand justified to Your Excellency and the State, and that You will indulgently believe that I do it, not from a wish to interfere in the most distant manner with the arrangements or appointments they may think proper to make upon any occasion, but from motives of a very different nature. These I hope will at once occur and therefore
I shall only add that I have the honor etc.1
1 The draft is in the writing of Robert Hanson Harrison.
On September 2 Robert Hanson Harrison, by direction of Washington, also wrote Major Lee requesting that a recruit by the name of Hoogland be delivered up to Hoogland’s brother when the latter required him to appear in court to discharge a bond which the brother had given for his appearance. Harrison’s letter is in the Washington Papers.
On September 2 Tench Tilghman also wrote to Captain von Heer that Washington wished Von Heer to send a patrol "down Barbadoes Neck as low as Aurant Schuylers, from whence he must detach one small party to Kennedy’s house and another to the road leading thro’ the Cedar Swamp to Bergen; these two small parties are necessary for the security of the whole. If the Officer discovers any movements of the enemy upon that quarter, let him give the General the most immediate notice." The draft of Tilghman’s letter is in the Washington Papers.