To George Washington from John Hancock, 20 June 1777
From John Hancock
Philada June 20th 1777.
Sir,
The enclosed Resolves relative to the Army, and therefore necessary for your Information, I have the Honour of transmitting at this Time; and beg Leave to refer your Attention to them.1
The Congress have finished the Commissary’s Department, and it is now in the Press. As soon as it is printed, I will forward sundry Copies for your Use.2
Your Favour of the 13th 14th & 15th Inst.; as also a Copy of your Letter to Genl Arnold, have been received, and are at this Time under the Consideration of a Committee. The Result shall be immediately transmitted. I have the Honour to be, with perfect Esteem and Respect Sir your most obed. & very hble Servt
John Hancock Presidt
Genl Gates is here; I hope he will soon be establish’d in a Command equal to his Merit.
LS, DLC:GW; LB, DNA:PCC, item 12A.
1. The enclosed resolutions were passed between 16 and 18 June 1777 and are located in DLC:GW (see also , 8:468, 472, 473, 475, 477). Congress’s resolution of 16 June orders Brig. Gen. John Philip De Haas to “immediately repair” to GW’s headquarters. A resolution of 17 June allocates $500 for the erection of a monument in Connecticut to honor Gen. David Wooster, who died on 2 May 1777 after being wounded on 27 April during the British raid on Danbury. Other resolutions of 17 June concern pay for aides-de-camp to brigadier generals, supplying combs for the troops, and the admittance of Col. Abraham Sheppard’s North Carolina regiment to the Continental line. A resolution of 18 June empowers the general officers in the separate departments to order executions or grant pardons of persons condemned to death by general courts-martial without having to report the matter to Congress, or to GW.
2. Congress’s committee on establishing the commissary department brought in a lengthy amended report on 10 June 1777, which is in DNA:PCC, item 29 (see also ibid., 433–48). Congress authorized John Dunlap to print the report as a broadside after consideration of the report was completed on 20 June, a copy of which Hancock enclosed in his letter to GW of 24 June.