To George Washington from Presley Thornton, 26 September 1758
From Presley Thornton
Wmsburg 26 Sepr 1758
My dear Colo.
To hear of the welfare of my Friend will always give me great Satisfaction, but your kind Letter of 8th Sepr has afforded infinite Pleasure. as in a paragraph of a Letter you some time ago wrote to Colo. Tayloe you mention’d my being unmindful of you, by not answering a letter that you had wrote to me soon after I had the Pleasure of seeing you last, wch I have never received therefore I must believe it has fallen into the Hands of the curious. I shou’d be pleased if I cou’d find out the person & will endeavor to do it, tho’ I am afraid it will be a difficult task.1
Your kind wishes for my Happiness deserve my most thankful acknowledgements. mine you have, with unfiegned sincerity, and I am truly concern’d to find that the prospect of your’s is so distant. I can only wish & that I will do most ardently that success may attend all your undertakings (& that soon) of wch Happiness must be the consequence.
I wou’d write to you the resolutions of the House of Burgesses but none of them as yet are compleated. I am inform’d that the Govr detains Jenkins until they are, that you may be fully advised of them,2 and my Business obliges me to be absent for a few days, & lest he shou’d be sent off before my return, I shou’d have been wanting in my Friendship to you, if I was not to write, tho’ it shou’d be nothing more than to assure you that I am with the greatest Truth my dear Colo. your mo. Affte & Obedt Servt
Presley Thornton
ALS, DLC:GW.
Presley Thornton (1721–1769), a member of the House of Burgesses from Northumberland County, was in Williamsburg for the meeting of the assembly.
1. No letter from GW to Thornton or to John Tayloe has been found.
2. Fauquier reported to GW on 7 Oct. that the House of Burgesses was still debating the bill relating to the colony’s military forces. For passage of the act to provide support for the two Virginia regiments, see Fauquier to GW, 16–29 Sept. 1758, and William Ramsay to GW, 17 Oct., n.2.