To Thomas Jefferson from William Phillips, 12 September 1779
From William Phillips
Colonel Carters House Septr: 12th. 1779
Major General Phillips’s Compliments wait on Governor Jefferson. He shall be greatly obliged to him to allow the inclosed letter being delivered to Mr: Hamilton.
Major General Phillips incloses a paper rather curious of its kind as a Parole for a Man of Rank merely travelling through a Country by a route he has already used: The letter of permission from Mr. Jefferson for the Major General making a Tour in Virginia was conceived in other terms.
Major General Phillips wishes Mrs. Jefferson and the Governor a pleasant journey to Williamsburgh.
RC (DLC). Enclosures: (1) letter from Phillips to Hamilton, missing; (2) see below.
On 11 Aug. 1779 Gen. Washington wrote Theodorick Bland that “Major General Philips and Major General Baron de Riedesel with his lady, and the Gentlemen composing their respective families, have permission to go into New York on parole. You will be pleased to notify them of this and furnish the Generals with a copy of the inclosed route” (Writings, ed. Fitzpatrick, xvi, 82; the permission to go into New York was countermanded while the party was en route; see later letters of Washington in the volume cited and , xv, 1114). Phillips evidently enclosed to TJ a copy of the parole issued at this time to the Convention officers, together with an itinerary from Orange Court House, Va., to Elizabeth Town, N.J., prescribed by Washington and Bland; this document, without date, is in DLC: TJ Papers, 6: 1044–5. TJ’s letter of permission to Phillips has not been found, but its terms were no doubt the same as his letter to Riedesel printed under date of July 1779.