Decr. 29th 1779 Philadelphia
Sir,
We received the inclosed from Major Lee the other Day, & beg Leave to forward it for the Consideration of your Excellency & the Council - being well assured that you will do all in your Power to relieve the Necessities of those valuable Men who are in Majr Lee’s Corps. We have applied to the Board of War, & find nothing can be done here.1 On the 23d inst an Embarkation took Place at New York, & from the Number of Vessels (one hundred sixty ships) we apprehend it to be very considerable - their Destination not certainly known, but from Circumstances we fear they are intended, in Part or the whole, to reinforce their Troops in the southern Quarter.
We are with the highest Sentiments of Respect, Yr. Excellency’s most obt. hble. Servts.
Geo. Plater
James Forbes
Receiver’s copy, Maryland State Papers (Red Books), Maryland Hall of Records Commission, Annapolis. Written by Plater and signed by Plater and Forbes.
1 Gen. William Smallwood, the ranking Maryland officer, had denied Maj. Henry Lee’s request for money and clothing for the Maryland officers incorporated into his Virginia partisan corps. Lee considered the decision "very injurious, especially when a late resolution of Congress declares the additional battalions to be on the same footing, as the troops from the State or States, to which they may respectively belong." The letters of Smallwood and Lee, dated December 21 and 23 respectively, are in the Red Books, MdAA. For Congress’ resolution of July 1, 1779, giving the officers of the additional and state battalions equal preference, See JCC, 14:790. In an undated letter of late December or early January, Lee appealed to the Maryland delegates to hasten aid for the Maryland officers because "the season of the year is rigerous, the gentlemen destitute of cloathing & their brother officers from Virginia comfortably supplied." On May 24, 1780, the Maryland Council ordered that allowances be paid to captains George Handy and John and Michael Rudolph of "Major Lees Corps." See Md. Archives, 43:180, 399. See also Maryland Delegates to Thomas Sim Lee, January 5, 1780.
In his letter of December 23 to the Maryland delegates, Major Lee also requested that Congress permit Capt. Allen McLane, of Delaware, "to draw the full allowance due the Maryland gentlemen." McLane’s company of infantry had been incorporated into Lee’s corps the previous July, for which see Delaware Delegates to McLane, July 5, 1779.