1. Trumbull is referring to GW’s circular to the states dated 26 March.

2. The following Monday was 8 May.

3. Thomas Pool petitioned Congress at New York City on 29 Sept. 1785 in regard to his activities as a Continental army spy: “That your Petitioner motivated by the purest and most disinterested zeal in the Cause of his Country, very early took an active and decided part in the late war, against the British Government, and had the honor of bearing a commission in the dragoons commanded by Coll: Sheldon.

“That having a long time conceived a design of rendering his Country some essential service, by undertaking some hazardous enterprize, he was impelled, as well as from this consideration, as from the eclat and advantage to himself, if his exertions were successful, to undertake the dangerous office, of procuring intelligence from the enemy, by personally going within their lines—that having intimated his design to his Excellency Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, he highly applauded your Petitioners resolution, and sent him with recommendatory letters to his Excellency General Washington, in the Spring of the year 1780—that he was received by him with every mark of respect, and his design being approved of, he was accordingly retained, and shortly after sent with the enemies lines, from whence he returned safe to head quarters, with the intelligence he had collected—that your Petitioner afterwards made several visits to the City of New York, and was generally happy in procuring important information; but unfortunately in making a further attempt on the 7th of September in the same year, he was arrested in the City of New York as a Spy, on the information of a villain then and still residing at Horse Neck in Connecticut—that after being seized he was carried to the Provost in the said City, and being loaded with irons, was confined in one of the lower dungeons, and remained in that miserable situation two hundred and thirty five days—that during all this period he lay on the cold ground without bed or bedding his daily subsistence bread and water, scantily supplied, excluded from all society, and not one ray of light admitted to cheer the melancholly gloom—to add to his misery, the Provost Marshal (a wretch appointed to that office for his matchless obduracy of heart) daily put him to torture unknown even to the British or imagination—Sometimes he was alarmed with a death warrant and ordered to prepare for immediate execution, and never failed daily receiving the most cruel beatings and tortures, to extort a confesion of his guilt, or the names of his accomplices; nor did they ever cease till your petitioner had apparently breathed his last, when he was respited to revive to a repetition of similar punishments—this produced a privation of the use of his limbs during Sixteen months, all which time he went on crutches.

“That after the expiration of the said 235 days he was alternately (as caprice dictated) a prisoner in a dungeon, or an upper room exposed to the weather, and deprived of society, cloathing, bed or firing, his tortures still continuing with unremitting cruelty, till the 24th October 1782 when he was sent to Bermuda there to be confined during the war from which place, he was again sent to New York, and from thence again to Bermuda, at which last place he made his escape, from on board the Ship in which he was confined, on the 24th of August 1783, and returned to this Continent in May 1785.

“That your Petitioner when taken as above stated, was Blest with an amiable wife and two endearing infants, who during his confinement and absence, were generally ignorant of his fate, and till his return suffered all that distress, that abject poverty and want could possibly expose them to—after expending the little property left with them, and tiring the benevolence of their friends, they were constrained to contract debt, which your Petitioner finds himself unable to discharge.

“Thus your Petitioner has simply related his story, but to convey an adequate idea of his past sufferings, is a task that language is incompetent to, nor can imagination figure a case so miserable, suffice it to say that his sufferings are unprecedented in the late war, and that perhaps history cannot furnish an instance of a wretch, surviving such accumulated misfortunes.

“He further begs leave to represent that tho’ his Excellency General Washington did not agree with your Petitioner for any stipulated sum, still he was promised the most generous reward for his services; but as the peace took place, and the Commander in Chief had retired, previous to his return to this Continent, he had it not in his power to obtain that remuneration which his services and sufferings merited.

“He is now therefore induced to address this August body, as his last and only resource and doubts not when they have considered his truly pitiable case, they will be of opinion that his claim to reparation from the public is founded in reason and justice.

“He therefore prays that they will be pleased to make him such compensation as they in their wisdom justice and benevolence shall think him entitled to” (DNA:PCC, item 42). Congress read Pool’s petition on 3 Oct. 1785 and awarded him $1,097 on 7 Sept. 1786 (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 29:805, 31:639; see also JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 30:137–39).

On 30 Sept. 1785, GW’s former aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton endorsed Pool’s statement: “I certify that I was privy to the Petitioners being employed by the Commander in Chief in the manner he mentions and that he made several trips to New York before he was taken up by the British—I further certify that from the accounts repeatedly received at Head Quarters of the treatment he experienced there is no reason to doubt he suffered every thing he could bear without loss of life” (DNA:PCC, item 42).

GW subsequently wrote from Alexandria, Va., on 21 Oct. 1785: “The above certificate of Colo. Hamilton, contains all, & precisely, what I know & believe respecting the Alligations of Mr Pool.

“With respect to the Sum, or Sums which he may have received from me, I am unable at this time & place to certify with any degree of certainty, but believe as he was early confined in the Provost at New York that it did not exceed ten or twelve Guineas” (ADS, DNA:PCC, item 42). GW went to Alexandria on that date to watch horse races (see Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 4:210).

Thomas Pool (Poole; 1753–1828) served as cornet in the 2d Continental Dragoons from January 1777 until his promotion to lieutenant that April. He resigned from the service in September 1778 and later became a spy. In his certification for Poole written at Litchfield, Conn., on 27 March 1818, Benjamin Tallmadge, former major in the 2d Continental Dragoons and liaison for the Culper spy ring, added “that after Mr Pool left the Regt, he went into N. York, by the knowledge & Approbation of Genl Washington, where he was taken up by the British General, & kept in severe & close Confinement for a long time, & I think was not liberated until the Close of the War” (DNA: RG 15, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800–1900). Hercules Mulligan, another spy for the Continental army, described Poole’s harsh treatment in a statement given at New York City on 2 Jan. 1786: “I was present in the Provost when Thos Pool was most inhumanly beat by the Provost Marshall and I have reason to beleave he suffered every thing he could bear with out loss of Life” (DNA:PCC, item 42). Poole worked after the war as a tavernkeeper in New London, Connecticut.