To George Washington from Jabez Bowen, 21 March 1780
From Jabez Bowen
Providence March 21 1780
Sir
Incloased you have a Resolve of the Council of War, recommending to your Exellency to permitt Gillam Butler Esqr. a British Commissary to go into NewYork on Parole or to be Exchangd, (if the good of the service will permitt).1 I am with every sentiment of Esteeme Your Exellencys Most Obedient and most Humb. Servant
Jabez Bowen Dep.-Govr
P.S. I have Mr Butlers Parole in my possession. he has a Copy.
J.B.
ALS, DLC:GW. Bowen wrote on the cover of his letter: “⅌ Mr Butler.” GW’s aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman misrendered Gillam Butler’s surname when he wrote an undated note on the cover: “Mr Gillam being exchanged was sent to New York.”
1. The enclosed resolution from Rhode Island officials “In Council of War” dated 16 March reads: “Whereas Gillam Butler, Esqr.; a Prisoner of War in this State, hath preferred a Petition and represented to this Council: That he is a Commissary in the British Army, and at the Time of his being taken was bound to New-York in order to settle his publick Accounts, with the Commissary General, that those Accounts are of such a nature, as to require an immediate Settlement the delay of which will be attended with considerable Loss, and the utmost Disadvantage of himself and Family, &c. and thereupon prayed that leave might be granted him to go to New-York upon his Parole, that he may be allow’d Time to settle his Accounts, or that some Person might be named to be return’d in Exchange for him: And the Premisses being duly considered, It is Resolv’d That Permission be and hereby is granted to the said Gillam Butler to proceed upon his Parole to Head Quarters, and that if his Excellency General Washington shall think it consistent with the publick good, that he permit the said Gillam Butler to go into New-York for the Purpose aforesaid, and that he permit him to be exchanged upon such Terms as he shall think proper, and that his Honor the Deputy-Governor be requested to take his Parole accordingly” (DLC:GW). For Butler’s capture, see Patrick Campbell to GW, 28 Nov. 1779, source note.
Gillam Butler, a British army commissary, apparently had been a merchant in Portsmouth, N.H., and was proscribed from the state because of his Loyalist sentiments (see , 8). The New Hampshire Committee of Safety at its meeting on 27 April 1778 permitted Butler’s wife and children to depart the state “to Rhode Island or elsewhere” (, 709–10).