From George Washington to John Jay, 6 August 1779
To John Jay
West point August the 6th 1779
sir
Your Excellency’s Letter of the 28th of July—with it’s several Inclosures, has been duly received.1 I shall take the liberty in a few days, to lay before Congress a state of facts with respect to the Expedition under General Sullivan, by which I trust it will appear, that every measure and precaution in my power has been taken to ensure it’s success;2 and notwithstanding the difficulties he points out, I would fain hope that it will terminate happily. I have the Honor to be with the greatest respect Yr Excellency’s Most Obedt servant
Go: Washington
LS, in Robert Hanson Harrison’s writing, DNA:PCC, item 152; Df, DLC:GW; copy, DNA:PCC, item 169; Varick transcript, DLC:GW. Congress read this letter on 16 Aug. and referred Brig. Gen. Samuel Holden Parson’s 31 July letter with its enclosures to the Committee of Intelligence ( 14:967–68).
1. GW is presumably referring to Jay’s letter of 29 July.
2. See GW to Jay, 15 August.
3. See Parsons to GW, 31 July, and n.1 to that document. For the British raiding expedition in early July against Fairfield, New Haven, and Norwalk, Conn., see GW to Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., 7 July, source note.
4. For these returns, see Parsons to GW, 20 July, n.1. The draft, in the writing of GW’s secretary Robert Hanson Harrison, has the following note after the postscript: “Copies of the Returns alluded to are in Genl parsons’s Letter of the 20 July—1779.” A document with copies of these returns, in Harrison’s writing and probably meant to be included with the draft of this letter, is filed with the 6 Aug. documents in DLC:GW; but the copy of the Norwalk return erroneously leaves off the count of vessels destroyed.