To Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Sim Lee, 27 April 1781
From Thomas Sim Lee
In Council, 27th. April, 1781.
Sir
Genl. Hamilton has informed us that a Flag with Cloathing and Money for the late Convention Troops stationed in Virginia and Maryland has arrived at Hampton and requested Permission to land them at George Town in Maryland, which we have granted so far as concerns the Troops in Maryland under certain restrictions and referred him to your Excellency as to the Necessaries for the Troops in Virginia. We wish that the enclosed Letter for Mr. Hoakesly may be sent on Board the Flag in such Manner as you may think proper to direct.
FC (MdAA). A partial text from the (now missing) RC is printed in , ii, 75. The “enclosed Letter for Mr. Hoakesly” (a British commissary of prisoners on board the flag-of-truce vessel) was a letter from Brig. Gen. James Hamilton, commanding the Convention troops at Frederick, Md., transmitting instructions relative to landing and transporting the goods brought in the vessel; see Hamilton to Gov. Lee and Council, 15 and 20 Apr. 1781 (Md. Archives, xlvii, 189, 199), and the Council’s replies, 18 and 22 Apr. 1781 (same, xlv, 403–4, 410).
Hamilton’s letter to Gov. Lee of 15 Apr., mentioned above, refers to a letter from Hamilton to TJ which has not been found: “Before I left Virginia I wrote his Excellency Thomas Jefferson that on the arrival of the flag I hoped he would allow her to proceed through such part of his Government as was necessary to reach the most convenient port in Maryland to where the Troops might be station’d which request on Governor Jefferson’s part I make no doubt will be granted.”