From Alexander Hamilton to Royal Flint, [27 November 1778]
To Royal Flint1
[Fredericksburg, New York, November 27, 1778]
Dr Sir
Col Harrison and myself are to meet two Gentlemen of the British army at Amboy monday week.2 We shall be obliged to feed them and their attendants as well as our own, while there, and must therefore request your assistance to have some handsome provision made there for us by that time. We shall probably be together only a few days and shall have sixteen or eighteen to feed. Let us have both victuals and drink enough. If you send any person of your department there be pleased also to give him directions to engage a couple of the best houses there; one for them—the other for us. The houses must be inhabited and the genteeler the families the better—if Whigs better and better still. This last I know is not in your line; but if it can be made one trouble of it will be preferable. If not, I beg you to mention the matter to General Greene or one of his assistants in my name.
I am with regard Sir Your obed serv
Alex Hamilton Aide De Camp
ALS, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford.
1. Flint was assistant commissary of purchases.
2. On November 10, 1778, Sir Henry Clinton wrote to Washington concerning the exchange of prisoners. On November 27, Washington wrote to John Beatty, commissary general of prisoners, Continental Army, that he had selected H and Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hanson Harrison as the American commissioners to negotiate with the British commissioners for the exchange of prisoners (George Washington Papers, Library of Congress).