To George Washington from William Livingston, 15 March 1780
From William Livingston
Trenton 15 March 1780
Dear Sir
I have had the Honour of your Excellency’s Favour of the 10th Instant inclosing a Return of the Citizens of this State inlisted in Moylands & Sheldon’s Regiments of light Dragoons.
I am now to apply to your Excellency in pursuance of an Act of our Legislature for as many officers as your Excellency shall think necessary to be sent into the different Counties of this State for the purpose of enlisting and forwarding such Recruits as may enlist in the Service upon the Terms in the said Act expressed.
As the officers which your Excellency may think proper to send on that Occasion, will want the Act of Assembly for compleating our Quota of Troops, I inclose 13 Copies for it,1 it is for their use2—& am with great Esteem Dear Sir Your Excellencys Most humble & Most obedient Servant
Wil. Livingston
ALS, DLC:GW; ADf, NN: William Livingston Papers, Letterbook; copy (extract), NHi: Stirling Papers. The extract omits the first paragraph of the ALS. For GW’s response to Livingston’s letter, which he received on 21 March, see his letter to Stirling, 22 March.
1. One of the enclosed copies of the act that passed the New Jersey legislature on 11 March is in DLC:GW. The measure was titled “An ACT for compleating the Quota of Troops belonging to this State in the Service of the United States,” and it established procedures to enlist “Four Hundred able-bodied and effective Volunteers … into the three Regiments of this State, in the Service of the United States, to continue in the said Service during the present War with Great-Britain” (see also N.J. Acts 1779, Second Sitting, 59–62). For the legislative process leading to the passage of this bill, see , pp. 117, 119, 127–28, 133, 136–37, 140, 147, 152, and , pp. 57–60.
2. Livingston’s draft concludes with a struck-out incomplete paragraph requesting GW’s staff officers to handle “Mrs Livingston’s Letter,” perhaps referring to a letter written to his wife, Susannah French Livingston, on 9 March (see , 3:322–24).