be greatly obliged by any draughts or hints which could be given by any body within the reach of your Excellency. I received advice that on the 22d instant, the enemy's fleet got all under way and were standing towards the Capes. As it still remained undecided whether they woud leave the bay or turn up it, I waited the next stage of information that you might so far be enabled to judge of their destination. This I hourly expected, but it did not come till this evening when I am informed they all got out to sea in the night of the 22d. What course they steered afterwards is not known. I must do their General and Commodore the justice to say that in every case to which their influence or attention could reach as far as I have been well informed, their conduct was such as does them the greatest honor In the few instances of unnecessary and wanton devastation which took place they punished the aggressors. TO BRIGADIER-GENERAL EDWARD STEVENS. SIR, The Enemy which lately invaded us left our Capes in the Night of the 22d Instant, what course they steered afterwards is not known. Another Fleet of Transports under the Command of Admiral Rodney fell down to the Hook on the 11th Instant. As this as well as the Fleet which lately left us is destined for Charles Town we shall March from their present Encampments all the forces who are so equipped as that they can proceed to distant Service. With them will go on between three & Four Hundred Tents belonging to this State. Three Hundred more are on the Road from Philadelphia and as many to follow. As Baron Steuben remains here to organize our forces I shall be obliged by special Returns of the 18 Months Men 8 months Men, & three months Militia which have or shall Come unto you as frequently as convenient. The Assembly being now met will shortly I hope furnish us with Money so that we may be once more able to send Supplies to the Southward We have Collected here at length, by impress principles, about thirty Waggons which have been delivered to the Continental Q-M. to be sent on with stores to Taylors Ferry. TO LIEUT. JOHN LOUIS DE UNGER.1 J. MSS. RICHMOND Nov 30. 1780. SIR,―The letter which covers this being of a public nature I wished separately to acknowlege the many things personally obliging to me expressed in your two letters. The very small amusements which it has been in my power to furnish in order to lighten some of your heavy hours by no means merited the acknowlegment you make. Their impression must be ascribed to your extreme sensibility rather than to their own weight. My wishes for your happiness give me participation in your joy at being exchanged sensibly however alloyed by a presentiment of the 'One of the Convention prisoners, in Albemarle. loss I shall sustain when I shall again be permitted to withdraw to that scene of quiet retirement abstracted from which I know no happiness in this world. Your line of life must have given you attachments to objects of a very different nature. When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not tarnished with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor & preferment which may gladden the heart of a souldier. On the other hand should your fondness for philosophy resume it's merited ascendancy, is it impossible to hope that this unexplored country may tempt your residence by holding out materials wherewith to build a fame founded on the happiness & not the calamities of human nature? Be this as it may whether philosopher or souldier, I wish you many felicities. TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. (BENJAMIN HARRISON.) V. S. A. IN COUNCIL December II 1780. SIR,-At the request of Major General Baron de Steuben, I take the liberty of transmitting to you his letter and observations on the cautions he thinks necessary to be observed on the raising future recruits. I think it my duty also to mention to the General Assembly that I have received information from him that a very considerable proportion of the new levies raised under an act of the last session of Assembly and now at Chesterfield are totally unfit for service, where much fatigue and hardship is to be endured, being old men, boys or decrepid: and for this reason he means to decline continuing them in Continental service and to return them to the State. Supposing that every intelligence which may tend to discover to the General Assembly the future determination of our enemies as to the conduct of the war against us may be acceptable, I beg leave to communicate to them the inclosed extract of a Letter I have received from William Lee esquire. It will be a very happy circumstance if the force intended to oppose their armies in the south can be brought into the field in time to find them embarrassed & retarded with the difficulties of subsistance and transportation through the inland country. Once advanced to a navigable water the communications by sea will relieve them from much incumbrance and in a great measure ensure them from capital disaster. The proposals herewith transmitted for raising a standing body of forces for the defence of this state requiring conditions beyond the powers of the Executive I beg leave to submit them to the wisdom of the General Assembly. TO GENERAL WASHINGTON. J. MSS. RICHMOND Dec: 15th, 1780. SIR, I had the honor of writing to your Excellency on the subject of an expedition contemplated by this State against the British post at Detroit and of receiving your answer of Oct: 10th. Since the date of my letter the face of things has so far changed as to leave it no longer optional in us to attempt or decline the expedition but compels us to decide in the affirmative and to begin our preparations immediately. The army the Enemy at present have in the South, the reinforcements still expected there, and their determination to direct their future exertions to that quarter, are not unknown to you. The regular force proposed on our part to counteract those exertions is such either from the real or supposed inability of this State as by no means to allow a hope that it may be effectual. It is therefore to be expected that the scene of war will either be within our country or very nearly advanced to it and that our principal dependance is to be on militia, for which reason it becomes incumbent to keep as great a proportion of our people as possible free to act in that quarter. In the meantime a Combination is forming in the westward which if not diverted will call thither a principal & most valuable part of our militia. From intelligence received we have reason to expect that a confederacy of British & Indians to the amount of 2000 men is formed for the purpose of spreading destruction & dismay thro' the whole extent of our frontier in the ensuing Spring. Should this take place we shall certainly lose in the South all aids of militia beyond the blue ridge besides the inhabitants who must fall a sacrifice in the course of the savage irruptions. There seems to be but one method of preventing this which is to give the Western enemy employment in their own country. The regular force Colo: Clarke already has with a proper draught from the militia beyond the Alleghany & that of three or four of our most northern counties will be adequate to the reduction of fort Detroit in the opinion of Colo: Clarke and he assigns the most probable reasons for that opinion. We have therefore determined to undertake & commit it to his direction. Whether the expence of the enterprise shall be at continent or state expence we will leave to be decided hereafter by Congress in whose justice we can confide as to the determination. In the mean |