William Fitzhugh to George Washington, 7 March 1781
From William Fitzhugh
Lowr Marlbro’ [Md.] March 7th 1781
Dear General
I had the Honor to Address You on the 20th of January last, in Answer to Your Acceptable favor of the 8th of Novr & gave you an Acct of the Proceedings of Our Assembly to that time1—We Afterwards Pass’d Several Bills, Viz. to Accede to the Confederation—to Confiscate Brittish Property, & to raise recruits for the Army, By Classing Property, Every £16,000 to find a Man, & on Failure, a Draught to take Place in Each Delinquent Class—The Draughts to Serve only to the 15th of December next—we Endeavord to Carry it for three Years, but found it Impossible.2 The Confederacy being now Compleat, I hope the Powers of Congress will be Ascertain’d, & made Equal to the Important Business they have to Direct, & this I Suppose may be Done by a Convention of Delegates, or a Delegate from every State, to fix & Ratify, a Necessary Jurisdiction; No other Mode has Occur’d to me by which it can be Done Effectually, However, I presume Congress will not Delay to recommend what to them may Appear Expedient.3
My Son Perry is now with Me & presents His respectful Compliments—He is Waiting to know His Distination in the Approaching Campaign, General Thompson has Honor’d Him with the Promise of an Appointment to be One of His Aids, so soon as that Generals Rank is Settl’d & He call’d to the Service, But as that Event is Uncertain, & my Son by Waiting for it, may Incur the C[e]nsure of Neglecting His Duty, And As Your Excellency may be probably able to form a Judgment of General Thompsons Prospects, He wou’d be much Oblig’d to You for Your Sentiments theron which will be a Direction to Him, Either to wait or Proceed to the Southward & there Join His Regiment;4 He has never Yet recd His Commission As Cornet, nor does he know How he may Stand in the Regiment to which He Belongs, Considering the Vacancys which have Happen’d Since His Captivity, But this I suppose will in Due time be Communicated.
Mrs Fitzhugh & My Son Perry Join with Me In respectful Complts & best Wishes to you & Your Lady.5 I have The Honor to be with the Highest Esteem & Regard Your Excellencys Affectionate & Oblig’d Hle Sert
Willm Fitzhugh
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Fitzhugh’s letter to GW of 20 Jan. has not been found. When he wrote Fitzhugh on 8 Nov. 1780, GW announced the exchange of his son, Lt. Peregrine Fitzhugh, and commented on military matters.
2. During a session that lasted from 17 Oct. 1780 to 2 Feb. 1781, the Maryland legislature adopted acts “to empower” the state’s congressional delegates to support the Articles of Confederation, “to procure recruits,” and to take over “all British property within this state” (, chapters 40, 43, and 45; see also n.3 below).
The act to “procure recruits” called for 1,000 men to serve in the Maryland line “for three years, if not sooner discharged, by an equal assessment on all property within this state.” The law directed county lieutenants to “divide and apportion all the property last assessed” in each county “into classes of sixteen thousand pounds each, as near as conveniently may be, taking care, as far as convenience will allow, to mix in each class persons of considerable property with such as have little or none, putting into each class, as near as conveniently may be, an equal number of militia men … and each shall, within twenty days after classing as aforesaid, find an able bodied recruit, between sixteen and forty-five years old, to serve for three years.” After acceptance of the recruit, “such class shall be exempt from contributing any property towards finding the men intended to be raised by this act.” In cases where a class failed to find “a proper effective recruit,” the law required that “lots to be cast fairly and openly amongst those who shall be retained in the class … and the person to whose lot it shall fall shall be from thenceforth, considered as an enlisted soldier, to serve until” 10 Dec. 1781 “in the quota of this state of the continental troops.” The act responded to new congressional troop quotas set in the reorganization of the Continental army (see General Orders, 1 Nov. 1780; see also Mordecai Gist to GW, 19 Jan. 1781, and n.2).
British seizures of American property, depredations such as “burning houses and towns,” and other “acts of violence and cruelty” prompted the law to confiscate British property.
3. On 12 Feb., the Maryland delegates laid before Congress the state legislature’s approval of the Articles of Confederation (see James Duane to GW, 29 Jan., and n.7). Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation on 1 March and then on 6 March appointed a three-member committee “to prepare a plan to invest the United States in Congress assembled with full and explicit powers for effectually carrying into execution in the several states all acts or resolutions passed agreeably to the Articles of Confederation” (, 19:236).
The Confederation government eventually proved weak because it lacked enforcement powers and because measures required unanimous approval from the state delegations. Writing New York delegate James Duane from Liberty Pole, N.J., on 3 Sept. 1780, GW’s aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton already had emphasized the need “to give Congress powers competent to the public exigencies. This may happen in two ways, one by resuming and exercising the discretionary powers I suppose to have been originally vested in them for the safety of the states and resting their conduct on the candor of their country men and the necessity of the conjuncture: the other by calling immediately a convention of all the states with full authority to conclude finally upon a general confederation, stating to them beforehand explicit[l]y the evils arising from a want of power in Congress, and the impossibil[it]y of supporting the contest on its present footing, that the delegates may come possessed of proper sentiments as well as proper authority to give to the meeting” (, 2:400–18, quote on 407).
Rhode Island delegate James Mitchell Varnum was among the first to propose a convention when he wrote Rhode Island governor William Greene from Philadelphia on 2 April 1781: “My Duty, or a mistaken Idea of it, obliges me to hazard a Conjecture, That the Time is not far distant when the present American Congress will be dissolved, or laid aside as Useless, unless a Change of Measures shall render their Authority more respectable. Our Time is consumed in trifling executive Business, while Objects of the greatest Magnitude are postponed, or rejected as subversive in their Nature, of democratical Liberty. If political & civil Liberty can be enjoyed amidst the Din of Arms, in their utmost platonic Extent, I confess my own Ideas are perfectly wrong; but if the kind of Government sufficiently energetic to obtain the Objects of Peace when free from Invasion, is too feeble to rase & support Armies, fight Battles and obtain compleat Victory, I know of but one eligible Resort in the Power of the United States. That is to form a Convention, not composed of Members of Congress, especially those whose political Sentiments have become interwoven with their Habits, from a long Train of thinking in the same Way. It should be the Business of this Convention to revise & refraim the Articles of Confediration, To define the aggregate Powers of the United States in Congress assembled, fix the Executive Departments, and ascertain their Authorities” (, 17:115–18, quote on 117).
4. Brig. Gen. William Thompson never resumed active duty after being part of a prisoner exchange in fall 1780 (see GW to Abraham Skinner, 8 Nov. 1780, source note).
5. GW replied to Fitzhugh on 25 March.