Baltimore 1st January 177[7]
My dear Sir,
A happy new year is my wish for you and your family. That it will be a year of freedom our brave troops appear determined on, and whilst they are so, the Instruments of tyranny, and the perpetrators of Devilish deeds will not, cannot face them. The removal from Philadelphia was not a measure of mine, but had my hearty disapprobation so long as disapproving availed any thing; but when go they would, I endeavored to put the best face on it. The Congress have lately invested General Washington with complete powers to displace, place, and direct every thing relative to the military Hospitals. To him therefore, let me advise you to make your immediate application, lay your plan before him, and prove as you have done to me the propriety of adopting it. No doubt can remain but that it will meet with his approbation and support. As for Morgan, the very Air teems with complaints against him.
If all charged against him be true, I would not have my conscience so burthened for Mountains of Gold. [1] Reasons for expecting the strongest friendship from France & Spain multiply upon us every day. If they can be prevailed with to make war, farewell the glory of England, and it may then be said as formerly it was of Rome
Sevior Armis Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem. [2] Had it not been for the vile appendages of Luxury, we should not have been abused, nor Britain overwhelmed by France. It will give us great pleasure to hear from you often, but greater still to see you. I will endeavor, but I know not how to hear from my Cousin Thom. But he is in a peaceful Country, and I make no doubt he is happy. Our best love attends.
Farewell,
Richard Henry Lee
Receiver's copy, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress. Addressed: "Doctor William Shippen Junr. at Bethelem in Pennsylvania. Favored by Colonel Stewart."
[1] Shippen had outlined his plan for hospitals in a December 20, 1776, letter to Lee; and in an undated letter which was probably written around this time, Shippen had suggested candidates for positions as directors and assistants of three hospital districts and listed charges against John Morgan. "The abuses, the Neglect & fraud in M - ns department have been of more disservice to the New Army, than any other circumstance I know of - (not paying the men is another bad thing, very few have received any pay for 4 months). The New England men say they will not serve if M - n is Director. The following are facts that can be proven but I should not choose to be called on: 1. He appointed his own apprentice who had not been with him 3 months, Apothecary General at 50 Dollars a Month, pocketted the whole & charged the youth for his board. 2. He had 8 or 10 mates at 3/9 a day & charges the continent 7/6 - they are quite ignorant. 3. From 50 to 100 sick are entirely trusted to these boys. 4. There always have been a great abundance of Stores locked up & with great expence removed from place to place greater than the first cost, & the sick perish for want of them. Hundreds in Hackinsack lying in straw in cold barns with nothing but Beef & bread to eat. 5. He makes money of the Tallow, by making candles & selling them to the hospital, therefore nothing but Beef given them, this I have from his Q Master Who was to have part of the proffit. & I am told he pockets all the retained rations- but this I cant prove. Nor should I choose to be called upon to prove any thing. I have my information from the united voice of his own officers." Lee Papers, PPAmP. Although Morgan was dismissed as director general on January 9 and Shippen's plan for hospitals was transmitted to Congress by General Washington in February, it was not until April that Congress adopted new regulations for military hospitals based largely on Shippen's recommendations and appointed Shippen as director general. JCC, 7:24, 161 - 64, 231 - 37, 244 - 46, 253. For a discussion of the assistance Shippen received in the preparation of his plan from Dr. John Cochran, who subsequently became physician and surgeon general of the army in the Middle Department, see Morris H. Saffron, Surgeon to Washington. Dr. John Cochran, 1730 - 1807 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 28 - 39, 213 - 17.
[2] This is a quotation from Juvenal Satires 6. 292 - 93, which may be translated: "A heavier burden than the arms of war, Luxury lies like an incubus upon us, avenging the world that Rome has conquered."