To George Washington from Thomas Mifflin, 25 April 1793
From Thomas Mifflin
Philadelphia April 25th 1793
Sir
In a letter dated the twenty fourth instant the Secretary at War has signified your Excellencys request that I would take such measures with the frontier Citizens of Pennsylvania as should in my judgment be most effectual to prevent any hostile incursions into, or near the Indian Country north of the Ohio, until the treaty proposed to be held at lower sandusky about the first day of June shall be closed.1 In compliance with this intimation, I propose besides issuing a Proclamation, containing a general warning upon the subject, to recommend by letter the greatest Circumspection to all the Judiciary and Militia Officers in the Western Counties: These are the only measures, that appear to be in my power at this time to pursue for promoting the salutary object which you contemplate; but should any others occur I shall chearfully adopt them.2 I am, with perfect respect Sir Your Excellencys Most obedient humble Servant
Thomas Mifflin
LS, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters.
1. Henry Knox’s letter to Mifflin has not been identified. On the treaty at Lower Sandusky, see GW to Charles Carroll (of Carrollton) and Charles Thomson, 23–31 Jan., and notes 2, 5, Knox to GW, 29 Jan., GW to Edmund Randolph, 12 Feb. 1793.
2. In a letter to Mifflin of 25 April GW had written: “The measures which your Excellency proposes to adopt to prevent any hostile incursions into the Indian Country from this State, until the proposed Treaty shall be finished, appear to me to be such as are proper for the occasion, and likely to prove successful. No others occur to me at present as necessary to secure the object—If any should, I will propose them with frankness, as I am persuaded, from the obliging manner in which you express your readiness to adopt them, that you will negle[c]t no measure which may tend to facilitate the peace which is so desirable for our Country” (Df, in Tobias Lear’s writing, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DLC:GW). Mifflin enclosed copies of both documents in his letter to GW of 29 April.