New York Legislature to George Washington, 30 March 1781
From the New York Legislature
Albany March 30th 1781
Sir
We do ourselves the honor to inclose your Excellency Copy of a Message from his Excellency the Governor with a Copy of the Letter referred to therein.1 Could the Legislature have afforded immediate Relief, or was there the least prospect of procuring any Provisions of the meat kind in time to prevent the Evils, we should not have troubled you on the occasion: But altho’ we have impowered our State Agent to draw on our Treasury for Money to make purchases of Beef ⟨ye⟩t he cannot derive any advantage from it as the Treasury ⟨is⟩ entirely destitute of Money;2 nor is there the least prospect ⟨tha⟩t any will come in until a new State Currency which ⟨we⟩ have directed to be issued can be prepared for emission, ⟨a⟩nd that we cannot reasonably expect to be in less than two Months.3 We are therefore impelled by the irresistable force of Necessity again to intreat your Excellency’s intervention and beg that Orders may be given for a continued Supply; for should the Troops be under the Necessity of abandoning the Posts they now occupy, they will be instantly followed by all the remaining Inhabitants,4 occasion unspeakable Distress to them be productive of a very prejudicial Influence on the Minds of the People, afford an advantage to the Enemy and be extensively detrimental to the Army and the States in general. The alarming5 Prospect before us can only appologize for this Intrusion, and we are persuaded it will be a sufficient one with a Gentleman who feels so sensibly for every part of the Count[r]y.6 We are with great Respect & Esteem Your Excellency’s most Obedt Servants.
Signed at the Request of the Legislature.
Geo: Clinton
LS, DLC:GW; Df, (partially burned), N: George Clinton Papers. GW’s aide-de-camp Tench Tilghman docketed the LS: “recd 9th April.”
1. New York governor George Clinton enclosed copies of two letters on the same sheet. One was his letter to the legislature written at Albany on 29 March that recommended the other letter to that body’s “Attention.” The second letter was from Brig. Gen. James Clinton to his brother George, written at Albany on the same date, to report that “the Troops under my Command” were in such need of provisions that he had withdrawn those “stationed at Fort Edward” to Saratoga, N.Y., “and I am hourly under Apprehensions that the remaining different Posts occupied for the defence of the Frontiers of this State will be abandoned and the Country left open to the Ravages of the Enemy unless some Means can be immediately taken to furnish them with Subsistence” (DLC:GW; see also , 6:728, and James Clinton to GW, 5 April, n.5).
2. See New York Legislature to GW, 14 Feb., and n.1 to that document.
3. A letter New York official John Morin Scott wrote Pennsylvania delegate Robert Morris from Fishkill, N.Y., on 30 May begins: “I am exceeding distressed that our legislature, at their last meeting, from an impossibility to raise sufficient sums in the old continental emissions by taxes, to draw out of the Loan-Office, into circulation, our proportion of the new emission, fell upon the dangerous expedient of a large State emission, funded on the same security with the other. To prevent this, as the State emission is not yet issued, and our legislature is to meet next week, I should be glad to substitute another expedient. To this end, as well as for other State purposes, the procurement without loss of time, of about 1700000 dollars old continental, will be wanting. I could not think of any person, so likely as yourself to assist me on this subject” (, 1:99–101, quote on 99; see also “An Act for emitting Monies upon the Credit of this State” in , 186–88, and Philip Schuyler to GW, 12 March 1780, notes 3 and 4).
4. The draft continues with struck-out material: “And this town and Schenectady become the barriers against the Enemy from the Northward and westward, to say nothing of the.” “Occasion“ is written above the line after the cancellation.
5. The draft read “dreadful” before being changed to this word.
6. GW replied to George Clinton on 15 April.