George Washington Papers
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Appendix I, To Henry Knox, c.4–18 May

Appendix I

To Henry Knox

[Philadelphia, c.4–18 May 1784]

Dear Sir,

The names which follow, are those mentioned in the Marqs la Fayette’s letter to me.

La’ Peyrouse

La Touche

D’Albert de Rion✻

Tilly✻1

Enclosed it seems is the proper address to the characters therein mentioned, I send it that you may be governed thereby—pray return it to me again 2—The enclosed private letters be so good as to include under cover of the public ones. Yrs affly

G.W.

✻I am not sure that these two gentn may not be of the line, & thereby included in the genl descripn.3

ALS, NN: Emmet Collection. The letter is without date and without the name of the addressee. GW wrote this covering letter after receiving Lafayette’s letters of 9 Mar. 1784 [1] [2] [3] [4], which L’Enfant brought with him from France. L’Enfant wrote from New York on 29 April that he had landed in New York with a packet of letters for GW relating to the Cincinnati that were “to voluminous to be sent.” The letters, however, were in GW’s hands at the opening of the meeting in Philadelphia, for on 5 May GW “introduced” to the meeting one of Lafayette’s letters of 9 March. GW’s letter printed here probably was intended for Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., or for Henry Knox. If the letter was directed to Trumbull, GW probably wrote it after 8 May when Trumbull was elected “scribe” of the meeting. If it was intended for Knox, as the Library of Congress indicates, it probably was written after 13 May when Knox was made chairman of a committee to receive “all the letters and papers addressed to this Meeting” (Sargent’s journal, doc. II). In any case it was written in Philadelphia almost certainly during the meeting, not on 4 April as has been assumed.

2GW may be referring to the list of French officers that Lafayette enclosed in his first letter of 9 March. See note 6 of that document.

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