From George Washington to the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, 6 February 1777
To the Pennsylvania Council of Safety
Head Qrs Morristown Feby 6th 1777.
Gentn
This will be delivered you by Colo. Cooke who commands a Regiment from your State, and whom I beg leave to refer to your Honorable body to settle accounts for such Sums of Money and other Articles as may have been furnished him for raising the same; Also to receive such further advances as he may have occasion for to fill his Regiment. Colo. Cooke having received all disbursements respecting his Regiment, from you, made it improper for me to grant him Money till he had settled with you, and I am to request that I may be favoured with the amount of your advances to him that I may know how to conduct on future applicatn.1 I have the Honor to be &c.
Df, in Robert Hanson Harrison’s writing, DLC:GW; Varick transcript, DLC:GW.
1. William Cooke (1732–1804) of Northumberland County, Pa., commanded the 12th Pennsylvania Regiment, which was created in early October 1776 and ordered to New Brunswick, N.J., on 1 Dec. 1776 (see Cooke to the Pennsylvania council of safety, 2 Dec. 1776, in , 1st ser., 5:84–85). Although records in the indicate that he resigned his commission on 16 Jan. 1778 (5th ser., 3:672), Cooke was court-martialed and convicted in mid-March 1778 of being absent without leave from his regiment for most of the previous winter and reprimanded in general orders (see General Orders, 9, 14 Mar. 1778).