Philada Jany 30th, 1776
My Dear Page
I received yours of the 20th Instant last night. I will deliver any Letter you may send to Mr. Rittenhouse, tho’ my acquaintance with him is but slight.
A very critical time is approaching. It is expected that administration will make some advances towards an accomodation. There are English Papers in this City brought by a Ship from Dunkirk, that mention Mr Penn, who carried the last Petition to the King, being examined before the House of Lords. His answers were short and clearer and seem’d to have weight with some of that Body, who had before been kept in the Dark. The expression is that he had made several of them Quakers. The Duke of Grafton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishop of Peterborough have espous’d the American cause. The bolus begins to operate & I think some of them will quake er’e it be long.
Administration have demanded 25,000 Men for the American service, which is ridicul’d by those in opposition, as entirely insufficient, after having been told by Mr Penn that the province of Pennsylvania singly, was 60,000 strong. They were call’d upon to speak out at once and declare what would be demanded, but that they did not chuse to do, until they had sounded and found how the Land laid. I have endeavoured to procure a paper for you, but being in the hands of the Printers, who do not chuse to part with them, I am disappointed & must therefore refer you to Purdies, who will have the News from his Brother Printers of this City. A Battallion of the Devonshire Militia have petitioned the King to send them over to America to thrash the Rebels. This petition was attack’d in the House of Commons by the Friends of Liberty as dangerous & highly improper; & the Minister condemn’d for suffering such an one to be presented to his Majesty: He was also accus’d of altering several parts of it himself & suiting it to his own purpose, after it had been taken out of the hands of the Petitioners. Thus have I given you all the News I can recollect, tho’ in a very imperfect manner, having never seen the Paper.
I am much concerned to find Bullit & Innes neglected by the Convention. I will consult my colleagues whether it will be proper to move for the former to have rank as a Colo. I think it would, & if they will join me it may be done. What we can do for Innes I do not know unless, provided a General be appointed, we can prevail on him to make him his Aid de Camp, a post that I think would suit him well, but there his rank would be only that of Major, whether he would like this or not I can not tell.1
Adieu
[Francis Lightfoot Lee]
Reprinted from Lawrence H. Leder, ed., The Genesis of American Freedom, 1765 - 1795 (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University, 1961), p. 21.
1 On March 6, 1776, Thomas Bullit was appointed deputy adjutant general in the southern department with the rank of lieutenant colonel. James Innis became a major on August 13, 1776. JCC, 4:187, 5:649.