George Washington Papers
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From George Washington to Edmund Randolph, 23 August 1794

To Edmund Randolph

Saturday night 8 o’Clock
Germantown [Pa.] 23d Augt ’94

Sir,

I return herewith the Letters which you sent to me by Express. As soon as you have read that from Mr Bradford to me, you will send it tonight to The Secretary of the Treasury, together with the letter to yourself, for his perusal.1 I shall be in the City tomorrow morning before 8 o’Clock, at which hour I shall expect to see you; & I request you to notify the Secretary of the Treasy thereof, that he may also attend.2

Go. W.

L, in the writing of Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, GW’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State.

1See William Bradford to GW, 17 Aug., and, for the letter from the three commissioners (Bradford, James Ross, and Jasper Yeates) to Randolph of that date, n.1 to that letter.

2Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton kept minutes of the meeting of 24 August. GW asked the secretaries’ advice on four questions: whether orders should be issued "for the immediate convening of the whole or any part of the Militia ordered to hold themselves in readiness to be called forth for suppressing the Insurrection in the Western parts of Pensylvania"; whether additional militia should be called out; what were "the proper places and time of rendezvous"; and "What communication shall be made to The Commissioners in answer to their letter of the 17th instant?" To the first question, they replied that "immediate" orders should be sent to the Virginia governor to assemble that militia, "recommending to him not to issue his public orders . . . ’till the first of September." To the second, that additional militia to a total of 1,500 should be called out from Virginia, endeavoring "to obtain as many riflemen as may be practicable under Major General Morgan and as near the scene of action as they can be had," that 500 should be called out from Maryland "with a like intimation as to Riflemen," and that 500 should come from New Jersey. To the third, they suggested a rendezvous at Carlisle, Pa., for the New Jersey militia; Carlisle and Chambersburg, Pa., for the Pennsylvania militia; Williamsport, Md., and a "more Westerly" place to be selected by the Maryland governor for the militia of that state; and "Winchester & the vicinity of Old Fort Pleasant" with a trans-Allegheny site chosen by the governor for the Virginia militia. "The time to be aimed at for reaching the ulterior points Bedford & Cumberland to be the first of October." To the fourth, the secretaries advised that the commissioners should "be informed of what further has been done with regard to the Militia—and to be advised explicitly to remain in that Country till after the proposed Meeting of the 2d of September" and to continue there as long as "public utility" and "their personal safety" allowed, "not exceeding the last of September." They were to be instructed "to announce with frankness and explicitness the determination of the Executive Government to exert all the means with which it is invested to produce a compliance with the laws—to encourage the well-disposed to cooperate in their support . . . & to communicate the substance of the information received with regard to the disposition of the Citizens to cooperate effectually with the Government" (DLC: Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion Collection; see also Hamilton Papers description begins Harold C. Syrett et al., eds. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. New York, 1961–87. description ends , 17:135-38).

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