To Alexander Hamilton from John Jay, 28 July 1798
From John Jay
Albany 28 July 1798
Dr Sir
Since I left N York I have had the Satisfaction of seeing your late appointment announced in the Papers; but I have seen nothing that decides your Rank in Relation to other Majr. Generals.1 Doubts on such a point ought not to remain.
Many will doubtless apply for Commands in the army, & it is to be wished that a judicious Selection may be made.
There is a Gentleman (who for your Information I will mention) who I am told would accept a Company, and of whose military Qualifications I have imbibed a very good opinion. I mean Warren De Lancey.2 I think he was a Lt. in the british Service and sold out.
Yours sincerely
John Jay
Majr. Genl. Hamilton
ALS, Hamilton Papers, Library of Congress.
2. During the American Revolution, De Lancey was a New York Loyalist who in 1780 had been “commissioned a cornet of dragoons” (Lorenzo Sabine, The American Loyalists; or, Biographical Sketches of adherents to the British crown in the war of the revolution; alphabetically arranged; with a preliminary historical essay [Boston: C. C. Little and J. Brown, 1847], 255).