From George Washington to Juan de Miralles, 4 April 1780
To Juan de Miralles
Hd Qrs Morristown 4 April 1780
Sir
I have been favored with your respective letters of the 14th and 22d of last month.1
For some time past the arrangements of the enemy at New-York and in their shipping, have looked towards another embarkation of troops, and my recent intelligence on this subject is strongly confirmative of the former.2 The troops said to be destined to this embarkation may be calculated at about 2500 including cavalry. The general report is that they are intended for the Southward. From the effects of the storm on the fleet which sailed with Gen: Sir Henry Clinton, and the inactivity of the enemy since their arrival in Carolina, it would appear that military succours were thought necessary to the success of their operations; and that the present embarkation at New-York is designed to co-operate at least in the first instance with Sir Henry Clinton. I thought it expedient to give you this information as the knowlege of any new addition of force in that quarter may have an influence on the suggested movements of his Catholic majesty’s arm’s in the Floridas.3 I am with great respect Your ob. & hble svt.
Df, in James McHenry’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
GW wrote another letter to Miralles from Morristown on this date: “I am much obliged to you for the present you have sent us and cannot but express my sense of your polite letter of the 15th of last month. Mrs Washington begs you would receive her thanks on the same occasion, and desires me to offer you her best compliments” (Df, in James McHenry’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW). A paragraph with the substance of this letter from GW to Miralles is struck out at the close of GW’s first letter to Miralles of this date.
1. For the letter from Miralles to GW of 22 March, see Miralles to GW, 14 March, source note.
2. For an intelligence report on British forces being sent south, see Johann Kalb’s second letter to GW, 29 March, found at Kalb’s first letter to GW, same date, source note; see also the councils of war, 27 March and 1 April.
3. For Spanish plans against Florida, see Miralles to GW, 29 Nov. 1779, and n.2 to that document; see also Benjamin Lincoln to GW, 28–29 Jan. 1780; GW to Lincoln, 27 Feb.; and GW to Miralles, same date.