Head Quarters, Newburgh, November 5, 1782
Sir:
I must request your Excellency to make it a Rule in future, when persons apply for Liberty to go to or within the Enemy’s Lines, to insert in your passports that they shall repair to Dobbs’s Ferry, which is the only post from whence Flags are sent, or at which they are received. This is absolutely necessary to prevent that illegal Intercourse and Traffic, which are now carried to so great a Height. I am induced to mention this to your Excellency, because Mr. Buchanon, who lately obtained a passport from the Executive of the State, came first to Dobbs’s Ferry and waited a Day or two. He went from thence to Eliza. town or some place in that Neighborhood, and then passed to New York by some Conveyance not properly authorized, and came out the same Way. I do not mean to charge Mr. Buchanon with any sinister Intention in going in the Manner above mentioned. It might have proceeded from Inadvertence or Ignorance. But if Dobbs’s Ferry is particularly specified in the passports, the persons, who infringe them, cannot make use of either of the foregoing pleas to justify themselves.
I have the Honor etc.1
[MD.H.S.]
1 In the writing of Hodijah Baylies. The same letter was written to President Dickinson, of Pennsylvania; the person who ignored the regulation in this case being a Mr. Craig.